Talk about a hot start.
It took Philadelphia Union forward Sébastien Le Toux only two games to triple his goal total from a season ago.
An emphatic hat trick in his team’s 3-2 victory over D.C. United on Saturday was more than enough for the League to recognize him as the top performer of the week, something Le Toux was proud to discover Monday morning.
“I’m very happy with it,” Le Toux told MLSsoccer.com over the phone. “It’s something great and is a great thing for me and is very surprising as I wasn’t expecting it as I came into practice. It’s just something really nice for me and for the team.”
Despite his impressive solo performance in the match, Le Toux was quick to credit his team for helping him improve on his overall performance from a season ago. Playing primarily out wide with the Sounders in 2009, Le Toux only managed one goal.
He now has three in two games with the Union.
“It was very important for the team and for the players and the city to get things started with a win for the club,” said Le Toux of the dramatic victory. “I think scoring early really helped us and we believed in ourselves when it came back to 2-2 because we really wanted to win the game. I may have scored the three goals, but everyone did an amazing job as a team, every player who played was wonderful. It was a great night for us.”
Le Toux and his teammates don’t have much time to sit and enjoy the victory and the personal honors as they will travel to Toronto on Thursday to take on TFC in what has been a strange start to the season.
Playing most of their first-half games on the road, Le Toux understands the importance of team unity, which he claims this team has in abundance.
“The team has great strength as a group, and we’ll have to show that game after game,” he said. “We have a lot of games on the road in the beginning of the year, so we have to be ready for that. We are really proud of how we played last Saturday and we’ll need everyone ready for the season.”
For now though, Le Toux is the man of the moment and he’ll hope to emulate Saturday’s performance numerous times as the Union move forward with their inaugural season.
