Mayra Madrigal
Player of the Week, an award presented by Continental Tire, this MLS Week 24 went to U.S. forward Gyasi Zardes, who plays for the Colorado Rapids. Zardes had a commendable performance in his team’s 4-3 win over Minnesota United.
Gyasi Zardes is having a good season with Colorado, but in this MLS Week 24 game, he had the best performance of the season so far. He was a key part of the team and managed to score three goals. He played seven games for the Columbus Crew at the beginning of the season, but now has 15 games in a Rapids jersey. In total, he has played 22 games, registering seven goals and two assists, six of those goals were with his current team, making him the second player with the most goals.
He improved his position among the tournament’s top scorers, thanks to his hat-trick on Saturday.
Gyasi Zardes’ First Hat-Trick for Colorado Rapids | MLS Player of the Week 24
This was his first hat-trick in a Colorado jersey, and he became the fifth player in league history to score multiple goals for the same team, in this case Minnesota.
Colorado started off behind in the 4th minute, but Gyasi Zardes equalized in the 7th minute to start his scoring quota for Saturday.
Zardes took advantage of a ball dropped by the goalkeeper and almost stumbled to push it in to open the scoring for his team.
His second goal came in the 14th minute, when he received a pass inside the box and tapped the ball into the net.
The third goal once again came at the right time and was almost a repeat of his first goal, as in the 61st minute, the goalkeeper left the ball loose and Zardes was able to reach it to score his goal.
Gyasi Zardes has 94 career goals in MLS, where he has played for LA Galaxy, Columbus Crew, and Colorado Rapids. With that number of goals, he equaled Venezuelan Josef Martínez in 12th place in the league’s all-time scoring charts.
The Colorado Rapids’ next match will be on August 13 against Columbus Crew, where Zardes could be in line to continue his goal-scoring success.
