Most Impactful Debuts in MLS History | OneFootball

Beckham. Zlatan. Bale. Messi. All four were massive transfers into MLS. But which of them actually made an impact right from their debut? This question was raised after looking at the recent performances of Son Heung-Min. In his first eight games, he logged 8 goals and 3 assists in 640 minutes of open play. Was this type of output normal? Or was he an outlier?

Hooligan Soccer made an effort to find out. We scoured through the data on the first eight games from a number of high profile MLS transfers to determine if they were all they were hyped to be. Turns out, many of them were. But not always the ones you’d expect.

The Top 5 MLS Impact Debuts

Thomas Müller (Vancouver Whitecaps, 2025)

At research time, Müller had played six games since transferring from Bayern Munich. On aggregate, he’s on track to become the most impactful debut ever. He didn’t score on his debut appearance, but did in his first start.

Lionel Messi (Inter Miami, 2023)

Nobody should be surprised to see Messi here. Those stats over four games are surreal. He also scored on his debut appearance, coming on in the 54th minute in a Leagues Cup match against Cruz Azul. He scored from a direct free kick in stoppage time to give Miami the win. Because of COURSE he did.

Son Heung-Min (LAFC, 2025)

The man whose actions started this exercise. While he did not score on his debut, he did draw a penalty after subbing on against Chicago Fire. MLS doesn’t count drawn penalties as assists, though nearly every other league does. He also has one hat-trick in his first eight games, unique among debutantes.

Thierry Henry (New York Red Bulls, 2011)

Only one of the top 5 to have started all eight of his debut games. Crazy good stats. He also had an eight-game stretch in 2013 where he notched 11g/5a.

Didier Drogba (Montréal Impact, 2015)

Fun fact: Drogba is the only major name transfer to have debuts in both MSL and USL. He was even more impactful in the latter. With Phoenix Rising (in 2017) he scored eleven times in his first eight games.

How Some Other Big Transfers Performed

Sadly, David Beckham’s statistics from 2007 were not complete, so we could not include him in our study.