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United States win Nations League
Goals from Chris Richards and Folarin Balogun powered the USMNT to a win over Canada and a second-straight Nations League title.
Hany Mukhtar had a hat trick on Saturday. He’s now scored a league-best 13 goals and is second in the league with nine non-penalty goals. Mukhtar is also tied for fourth in the league with seven assists. Six of those assists have been primary assists. That’s tied for the second-best mark in the league. His 13 goals and six primary assists give him the league lead in direct goal contributions. He has 19 on the season. The next closest player (Thiago Almada) has 15.
Is the MVP race over?
We try not to steer full speed into hyperbole around here, but yeah. Yup. This thing is over. I mean probably. Injuries happen, MLS happens, sometimes people just don’t vote for LeBron James because they’re bored, it’s tough out here to win back-to-back MVPs.
But yeah. Kind of feels like this thing is over. This weekend’s hat trick felt like watching a slow-motion Planet Earth video of an apex predator finally catching up to its prey.
Mukhtar didn’t get off to a blazing hot start. It took him six games to score his first goal. Since then, he’s been unplayable. Over the course of the last two and a half months, Mukhtar has averaged 1.27 goals plus assists per 90. It doesn’t feel like he’s going to slow down either. This time last year, he had just nine goals and five assists before finishing with 23 goals and 11 assists. Nashville are in a groove and are just a couple of weeks from an open transfer window, and, in theory, the DP striker that’s been promised. His numbers (especially assists) could actually improve.
It’s not just time to talk about Mukhtar as your back-to-back MVP winner though. It’s time to talk about Mukhtar’s place among the best players in MLS history. With his hat trick, he became one of three players in MLS history to score 50 goals and deliver 30 assists over a three-season stretch. Robbie Keane did it twice, but his best stretch was a 55-goal, 33-assist run from 2013 to 2015. Giovinco scored 55 goals and added 37 assists from 2015 to 2017. Obviously, that three-season stretch isn’t over for Mukhtar. And he’s sitting on 52 goals and 30 assists. Mukhtar is just nine goal contributions from an all-time great run.
Yes, that’s even compared to elite scorers from the last few years like Carlos Vela and Josef Martinez. Vela put up 81 contributions from 2018 through the COVID--shortened 2020 season. Martinez had 88 goal contributions from 2017 to 2019. Mukhtar is a couple of months…a couple of games (?) from passing them. Plus, well, let’s just be nice about it and say Mukhtar hasn’t had anything resembling the same kind of help in attack as the other players on this three-year list.
He’s truly special. Somehow, we don’t appreciate what he’s doing enough. It’s time to start changing that.
- Charles Boehm wondered whether the USMNT are on autopilot.
- John Herdman says Canada must “get serious about winning a World Cup.”
- USMNT Player Ratings
- Canada Player Ratings
Good luck out there. Might haul off and make this full time for a week, y’all better look at this.
