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Nyassi named player of the week
Tim Ream and the rest if the Red Bulls couldn't stop Sanna Nyassi on Wednesday. Nyassi's hat trick helped him earn MLS honors on Monday. (Photograph by Jessica Taves/ColoradoSoccerNow.com)
The Colorado Rapids finally had a player named MLS Player of the Week, and it only took one of the best debuts by a forward ever to get it.
Sanna Nyassi, who scored a hat trick and picked up an assist in a 4-1 beating of the New York Red Bulls on Wednesday, was named the player of the week on Monday. The North American Soccer Reporters vote for the honor, and Nyassi is the first Rapid to win the honor this season.
Nyassi, who also earned a penalty kick in Saturday’s 2-2 draw with New England, moved from the midfield to forward for Wednesday’s match. The move was necessitated by the loss of forward Conor Casey for the season due to an ruptured left Achilles tendon.
Nyassi repaid the move by delivering slashing through the center of the New York defense. Working in deft combination with Omar Cummings, who picked up assists on all three goals, Nyassi became only the seventh Rapids player to score three games in a goal. No Rapids player has ever scored more.
Nyassi also picked up an assist on Wells Thompson’s first half goal.
Nyassi and the Rapids (7-6-10, 31 points) travel to Philadelphia to take on the Union on Friday. Meanwhile, Cummings will be in New York for the MLS All-Star game against Manchester United on Wednesday.
CSN Vote: Nyassi, Nyassi, Nyassi. If we could have voted three times we would have. Not only did he deliver on a chance taken by coach Gary Smith, but he reopened the question about who will play in central defense for the U.S. Men’s National Team. Nyassi didn’t score on clever flicks or off dead ball situations. He scored by running at the teeth of the defense and outplaying the New York center backs.
For an encore, Nyassi earned the penalty kick that reduced New England to 10 men on Saturday and allowed the Rapids to pull even at 1-1 en route to a 2-2 draw. Quite a week for the Gambian who rarely saw the field for the first two-thirds of the season.
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