Lionel Messi versus Thomas Muller: A rivalry told through three classic matches ahead of MLS Cup Final

The 2025 MLS Cup final is set: Inter Miami will host the Vancouver Whitecaps in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday, Dec. 6, to determine the league's next champion.

There's a lot to like about this matchup, from its strained recent history (Vancouver knocked Miami out of the CONCACAF Champions Cup earlier this season) to its contrasting tactical styles. But the biggest narrative, in typical MLS fashion, is one with its biggest stars: Lionel Messi on one side and Thomas Muller on the other.

Messi and Muller are two of the biggest stars of their generation. Born just two years apart in 1987 and 1989, respectively, they've been orbiting one another since they were youth prospects in Europe. They've faced off several times for club and country, and most of their meetings wound up being blockbuster affairs. The 2025 MLS Cup will be no different.

“The match gets a little bit more important than it is,” Muller said, via Charles Boehm of mlssoccer.com. “It's a final for the MLS Cup. But if it's with these big, big players and big names in the soccer world, then it's a little bit more exciting for more people in the world. So, a perfect situation for everyone involved.”

A perfect situation indeed. Here's a breakdown of Messi and Muller's competitive history, told through three crucial meetings in their past.

World Cup Final 2014: Germany 1-0 Argentina

It doesn't get bigger than this. Muller's Germany met Messi's Argentina in the final of the 2014 World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after the two teams took wildly different paths to soccer's most important game. 

Germany, studded with a handful of world-beating stars like Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Miroslav Klose, earned its spot by bulldozing the competition (you may remember it handing Brazil its worst-ever World Cup defeat along the way). Argentina, meanwhile, largely qualified for the final through Messi's individual brilliance. He dragged the team through the group stage, scoring two game-winners along the way, and led it through a difficult knockout draw.

The narrative around this final, then, was simple. Who will win: the best team in the world or the best player in the world? 

Team dynamics won out in the end. Germany kept its cool through a tight, difficult match and found an extra-time winner through Mario Gotze in the 113th minute. Messi and Argentina were crushed, but their moment was on its way: they won a World Cup final of their own eight years later in Qatar.