Mukhtar Continues MVP Hunt With Hat Trick In 4-1 Win Over Colorado

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Dax McCarty and Hany Mukhtar. Photo: Courtesy of Nashville SC

Hany Mukhtar once again proved why he is the clear choice for the 2022 MLS MVP by scoring a hat trick in Nashville’s 4-1 win against Colorado on Wednesday night (Aug. 31).

Nashville SC has now won three straight matches, outscoring its opponents 11-1 in that stretch. In the team’s last five games, Mukhtar has seven goals and assisted three goals. He is now tied for first in goals scored with 19 and is first in goals+assists with 30.

“Of course, I have to highlight Hany’s sensational display against what I thought was a pretty decent man-marking job by [Bryan] Acosta, and he still scored a hat trick,” said head coach Gary Smith in a postgame press conference. “It just underlines the sheer quality of the individual and should really shine an even bigger spotlight on what he’s trying to achieve this year.”

The German international scored three brilliant goals, starting with a perfect penalty shot in the first half, which helped Nashville find some momentum after playing pretty poorly in the first 20 minutes of the game.

In the 54th minute, Randall Leal, who also played a great game, passed it to Mukhtar into the left side of the box where he shot it under the goalkeeper and ricocheted into the net. Finally, in the 75th minute, Leal took a great shot on net which was blocked by the goalkeeper, but Mukhtar was there to header it in to complete his hat trick.

Mukhtar fell short of his MVP campaign last year and many feel that it is because he entered the discussion late in the season. The club and the players started the ‘Hany for MVP’ campaign and are pushing to have his name be at the top of the list of contenders.

Team captain Dax McCarty joined the postgame press conference for one thing only–to tout on how important Mukhtar is for Nashville.

Hany Mukhtar. Photo: Courtesy of Nashville SC

“I’m sure most of you are sitting here wondering, ‘Why is Dax in this press conference right now?’ and honestly I’m going to be very brief,” he explained. “It’s award season, which means the propaganda machine starts churning out all the favorite candidates, highlights, and all the things the players around this league do very well. I think its incumbent on myself to come up here as the team captain and talk about how important Hany Mukhtar has been to our club, not just this year but for the past three years.

“If you breakdown what the Most Valuable Player award means, I think it’s a guy who’s absolutely irreplaceable on his team. I don’t think anyone is going to sit up here and argue that [Mukhtar’s] not irreplaceable for us.”

Mukhtar leads the league in scoring attempts with an astounding 107 and a goals average over 90 minutes of 0.72. The stats speak for themselves of how important Mukhtar is to this team as he has contributed to 30 of Nashville’s 45 goals this season. Without him, who knows where NSC would be in the standings.

Photo: Courtesy of Nashville SC

“Honestly, I just want to be successful here. I want to give my best performance, and that’s what I do every training and every game. I give my best,” Mukhtar shared. “If I do that, I can achieve and will achieve to be the MVP in the league. Like Dax said, I want to be very successful with the team, but I also want to win MVP. That’s my personal goal. I think I have [had] to step up throughout my whole career. I always needed to do more than other players, and I think if you’ve seen the last two years and how I’ve improved here, I think I’m on the right way to achieve that.”

Along with Mukhtar’s hat trick, Jacob Shaffelburg scored his second goal with the Boys in Gold and played another great game alongside Mukhtar and Leal.

With the win, Nashville now has 42 points and sits in fifth place in the Western Conference standings. They are one point behind Dallas and two points behind Minnesota.

NSC welcomes Austin FC to GEODIS Park on Saturday, Sept. 3 as fellow MVP favorite Sebastián Driussi take on Nashville for the first time this season.

Steven Boero
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