The wait is over. Major League Soccer (MLS) announced Hany Mukhtar (Nashville SC) as the winner of the Landon Donovan Regular Season Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award on Wednesday after winning the Golden Boot during his record-breaking season. He beat Sebastián Driussi (Austin FC) and Andre Blake (Philadelphia Union).
The German midfielder led the field with 34 goal contributions (23 goals, 11 assists) in 2022. In this way, he ties the fifth most achieved in a single season in the history of the league. In fact, he scored or assisted a 65.4% of Nashville’s goals in 2021. In addition, he helped the club finish fifth in the Western Conference and earn a playoff spot.
Mukhtar registered 21 goals and seven assists in his last 22 games of the season, culminating in a record of 11 goals since the beginning of August. August was his historic milestone as he became the fourth player in MLS history to total at least goal contributions (eight goals, four assists) in just four weeks.
European pride in MLS
In this way, Mukhtar becomes the first player born in Germany, and the first in the history of Nashville SC, to receive the MLS MVP. He is also the sixth player born in Europe to win the award since 2000, and the third in a row, after Carles Gil (2021) and Alejandro Pozuelo (2020).
The Nashville SC midfielder was the first player to lead the league in goal contributions in consecutive seasons since Sebastian Giovinco in 2000 Y 2016. Mukhtar’s 62 combined goals and assists, between 2021 and 2022, are the fifth most in a span of two years in league history.
It is worth remembering that Nashville is the fourth expansion club to have a player win the honor in his first three MLS campaigns, along with LAFC (Carlos Vela in 2019), Atlanta United FC (Josef Martínez in 2018) and New York City FC (David Villa at 2016). Nashville produced a club record of 13 wins in 2022, achieving seven of them as visitors.
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