This Major League Soccer Matchday featured Wednesday and Saturday fixtures and double game weeks for certain players, yet the recipient of my latest Player of the Matchday vote did all his work in one 64-minute appearance on Saturday night.
How We Voted, the column all about each Player of the Matchday ballot I submit, stuck with the obvious this week and lined up behind the only player to score a hat trick. This came close to being an all-Los Angeles vote with both sides of the city’s MLS rivalry represented, but I instead leaned into my East Coast bias and included a two-match standout from close to home as the No 2 player on my ballot.
My ballot had some New York City FC on it and so did the latest MLS Team of the Matchday, a perk of winning another Hudson River Derby.
The HRB Ballot, Matchdays 36 and 37
1. Joseph Paintsil, LA Galaxy
LA Galaxy are experiencing the worst MLS season in the club's long history, yet they've still managed to give their fans some positive moments amidst a year largely spent at the very bottom of the MLS table. Joseph Painstil scoring a first-half hat trick, his first since joining LA last season, to earn the Galaxy a 4-1 win over Sporting Kansas City counts as a season-long highlight.
It's their second win in their last five matches, what amounts to a hot streak for a team still sitting at the very bottom of the league's standings. Paintsil's three goals were all examples of the Ghanaian forward making runs into vacated space in Kansas City's penalty area and finishing off solid team moves, with Paintsil twice finishing from crosses from teammates. Completely took advantage of Kansas City's lax marking in the box and was clinical with each of his finishes, making it an easy choice to vote Paintsil.
He was a striker scoring striker's goals, something he's done with consistency since joining Los Angeles – Paintsil is up to 14 goals in 31 appearances in all competitions this season for the Galaxy, comparable to the 15 goals he scored across 37 appearances in all comps with LAG during their 2024 season which ended in a MLS Cup win.
The 2025 season has been ugly, but the Galaxy still made a deep run in Leagues Cup and won the Third-Place Game against Orlando City SC, thus qualifying for next season's Concacaf Champions Cup. Now they've got their Designated Player heating up and earning votes for Player of the Matchday thanks to his three goals and to his secondary assist
The timing couldn't be better for Paintsil's scoring outburst since it came days before the Galaxy play Deportivo Toluca FC to decide who lifts this year's Campeones Cup. While the Galaxy have just five wins and remain in 30th Place in the Supporters' Shield standings, the win over SKC pulls them closer to an escape from 30th and the "honor" of claiming this year's Wooden Spoon as the bottom team in MLS.
2. Nicolás Fernández Mercau, New York City FC
This is where I bring back a reminder that this round of voting covered games played this past Wednesday and Saturday. I ranked New York City FC's new Designated Player as the Matchday's second-best performer because he was NYCFC's top performer in both their matches played last week, even if he didn't score and if his team lost 0-4 to a playoff rival in one of those matches.
Fernández Mercau started twice at striker in place of the injured Alonso Martínez after playing all his previous minutes with his new NYCFC team as either a wide attacker or a more central attacking midfielder. He scored once for sure in his team's Hudson River Derby win, and should have had a second goal, were it not for a dubious decision by referee Guido Gonzales Jr. to disallow a goal from Nico that would have made it a 4-2 NYCFC lead over the Red Bulls.
Even against Miami, Fernández Mercau was part of a fruitless early-match flurry for New York City in which he could have had an assist and a goal. He picked out an unmarked Thiago Martins with a perfectly whipped-in corner only for the defender to put his header directly into the hands of Miami's goalkeeper in the 21st minute, then fluffed his shot and put it off the outside of the post when he'd been played in on goal by Aiden O'Neill in the 29th minute.
He immediately erased the disappointment of the Miami game by scoring in under two minutes against the Red Bulls, and he was a constant danger in New Jersey against a Red Bulls defense that looked vulnerable whenever New York City regained possession and got out on the counter. His actual raw statistics from the two matches don't wow you – maybe not as much as Son Heung-min's two goals scored in LAFC's recent win, or Lionel Messi's handful of goal contributions in Miami's big midweek win over Fernández Mercau and NYCFC.
Yet the influence Fernández Mercau has had on New York City is undeniable, with the team's record now at 7W-0D-2L in the MLS games played since the Argentine joined for a club-record fee this summer. His work leading the line in absence of Alonso Martínez, and in what might not be his most natural attacking position, stood out and deserved at least a token second-place vote.
Official Player of the Matchday: Joseph Paintsil
Video is via MLS on Twitter.
No qualms with the Paintsil win, and there's something poetic about this performance coming while former LA Galaxy striker Dejan Joveljić made his return to DignityHealth Sports Park in Carson, California, as a member of Sporting Kansas City for the first time since leaving the Galaxy following their MLS Cup win last December. It's been rough going for the Galaxy since that MLS Cup triumph, as they've badly missed not just Joveljić but especially midfielder Riqui Puig, still out recovering from a torn ACL suffered during last year's MLS Cup Playoffs. If Paintsil helps them lift Campeones Cup, it might at least numb some of the pain of the number of losses and roster and staff upheaval the Galaxy faced throughout this season.
MLSsoccer staff
MLS Team of the Matchday
Starters: Sean Johnson (TOR) - Andrew Gutman (CHI), Thiago Martins (NYC), Alex Freeman (ORL) - Indiana Vassilev (PHI), Nectarios Triantis (MIN), Braian Ojeda (RSL), Dante Sealy (MTL) - Dor Turgeman (NE), Son Heung-Min (LAFC), Joseph Paintsil (LA)
Coach: Pascal Jansen (NYC)
Bench: Pedro Gallese (ORL), Artem Smolyakov (LAFC), Andy Najar (NSH), Albert Rusnák (SEA), Diego Luna (RSL), Milan Iloski (PHI), Mikael Uhre (PHI), Petar Musa (DAL), Josef Martínez (SJ)
The votes for New York City FC's Pascal Jansen just keep coming, this being his third time now named as Coach of the Matchday. To wrap up our NYCFC obligations, it's slightly surprising to see Thiago Martins picked over, say, Andrés Perea or even Fernández Mercau, but he did score the winning goal and stepped up late in that second half while the injured Matt Freese was out of NYCFC's goal and while they were nursing a one-goal lead.
