NEW YORK (Monday, May 9, 2022) – Atlanta United FC forward Ronaldo Cisneros was voted the Major League Soccer Player of the Week presented by Continental Tire for the 10th week of the 2022 MLS season.
In his debut season with Atlanta, Cisneros scored the second first-half hat trick in Atlanta United history, catalyzing the club’s 4-1 victory over the Chicago Fire (Watch Highlights from His Performance Here). Cisneros only needed 36 minutes to accomplish his first MLS hat trick, which was the fastest in Atlanta history from the start of the match, besting Josef Martínez’s 39-minute hat trick vs. New England on September 13, 2017.
Cisneros quickly opened the scoring in the third minute when he finished off Atlanta’s spectacular 10-pass move by pinging his shot off the underside of the crossbar and into the goal (Watch Here). His goal was the club’s fastest since Martínez scored just 47 seconds into the match at Orlando City SC on July 30, 2021. The Mexican scored his second goal in the 27th minute when Atlanta’s Matheus Rossetto’s shot from a tight angle was pushed away by the goalkeeper into Cisneros’ path for an easy tap-in (Watch Here). Just nine minutes later, Cisneros completed the hat trick after he slipped behind Chicago’s defense, rounded the goalkeeper and calmly placed the ball into the open net to send the home crowd into a frenzy (Watch Here).
With his performance, Cisneros became the seventh player to score a hat trick this season and the only player in Week 10 to do so. Of the seven players to score a hat trick in 2022, Cisneros and Inter Miami’s Leonardo Campana are the only ones to do so in their first MLS season. Additionally, Cisneros is just the third Atlanta United player with three goals in a game, joining Martínez and Miguel Almirón.
Cisneros is the first Atlanta player to win MLS Player of the Week presented by Continental Tire this year and the only one to do so since the start of the 2020 season. The man named after Brazilian legend Ronaldo is now the fourth player in club history to win the award (Martínez, Almirón and Ezequiel Barco).
Atlanta will look to extend its 12-game unbeaten run at home when they host the New England Revolution at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday, May 15 (1:30 p.m. ET, ESPN / ESPN Deportes).
The MLS Player of the Week presented by Continental Tire 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 percent of the vote, while a Twitter fan vote represents the remaining 25 percent of voting. NASR consists of members of print, television, radio and online media.
