My choice for Atlanta United’s man of the match following Saturday’s 4-1 win against Vancouver at Mercedes-Benz Stadium:
JOSEF MARTINEZ
Striker
Why: He scored three goals for his fourth hat trick. It came in just his 23rd MLS game. He needs one more hat trick to tie the league record.
“Hopefully, I can get it,” he said. “But I just want to appreciate and thank my teammates because we wanted to ratify the performance we had last week.
“I didn’t know about the hat trick. We just wanted to ratify the performance and keep getting better.”
His first goal came in the 15th minute on a penalty.
His second came in the 60th minute and was assisted by Miguel Almiron.
His third came on assists from Julian Gressel and Andrew Carleton.
“He’s really good at scoring goals,” Atlanta United captain Michael Parkhurst said. “He’s got that mentality. He’s just ruthless in front of the net. He loves to score goals. He gets upset in training, in games, when we are just goofing around. He gets upset when he doesn’t score goals.
“It’s what he loves to do. You can see it out there. He puts so much pressure on the back line. I’m just thankful that I don’t have to play against him. It’s impressive what he’s done so far in the league.”
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