It’s hard to do much better than playing a part in four goals in one game.
So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, then, that Chicago Fire forward David Accam was rewarded for his monster day by being named Alcatel MLS Player of the Week for Week 17, as voted on by the North American Soccer Reporters (NASR).
Accam scored three goals and added an assist in Chicago’s 4-0 walloping of Orlando City SC on Saturday at Toyota Park.
The hat trick was the first of his career, and he became the seventh Fire player to ever accomplish such a feat. Afterwards, Accam said, "I thought I could do anything on the pitch today" — and he wasn't wrong.
The Ghanaian international, now tied for the league lead in combined goals and assists with 16 (10 goals, six assists), put the Fire on the board with a nifty backheel in the third minute. He added his second goal just five minutes later, receiving a long pass from Bastian Schweinsteiger, rounding Orlando goalkeeper Joe Bendik and finishing with a right-footed strike. He completed the hat trick with a second-half penalty kick, not long after setting up Nemanja Nikolic’s league-leading 14th goal of the season with a beautifully-placed pass.
Accam and the red-hot Fire, unbeaten in nine straight games and sitting in second place in the Supporters’ Shield Standings with 34 points, next play USL club FC Cincinnati in the U.S. Open Cup on Wednesday (8 pm ET, ESPN2), before returning to MLS play Saturday to host Vancouver Whitecaps FC (7 pm ET, MLS LIVE in US | TSN in Canada).
The MLS Player of the Week is selected each week of the regular season by a panel of journalists from NASR. The group consists of members of print, television, radio and online media.
