Gyasi Zardes was voted Major League Soccer’s Player of the Week for his Week 24 performance against Minnesota United on Saturday, in which he scored a hat trick in the span of 61 minutes as the Rapids went on to win 4-3.
Zardes became the first member of the Rapids to win MLS Player of the Week since Andre Shinyashiki did so Week 27 of 2019. The pair are the only Rapids players to be given the award since the start of the 2015 season.
On Saturday, his first goal came about by being in the right place at the right time as Michael Barrios found him and he finished from close range. The other two came about by crashing the box, as Minnesota United goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair spilled potential saves, while Zardes sprinted in and slotted home his last two goals as a result of St. Clair’s errors.
Zardes has either a goal or an assist in each of his last six games, as he has five goals and an assist during that time period. He now has 94-career goals in MLS, the second-most for an active player behind Kei Kamara, while he moved up to 12th all-time on the goal-scoring list.
Career-wise, it was his sixth MLS Player of the Week nod and trails only LAFC’s Carlos Vela (eight) and Atlanta United’s Josef Martinez (seven). It was also Zardes’ second-career hat trick, the first of which also came against the Loons in 2018.
Colorado (8-9-6, 30 points) remained in 10th in the MLS Western Conference after last weekend’s win, but are just one win from moving above the playoff line and are two wins away from moving up to fourth. Six points separates the third- to 11th-placed teams. The Rapids will prepare to face Zardes’ old team in the Columbus Crew in a west-vs-east showdown starting at 7 p.m. Saturday at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.
The MLS Player of the Week is selected each week of the regular season through both media and fan voting in a process conducted by MLS Communications. A panel of journalists from the North American Soccer Reporters (NASR) comprises 75% of the vote, while a Twitter fan vote represents the remaining 25% of voting. NASR consists of members of print, television, radio and online media.
