Cucho Hernandez named MLS Player of the Month

NEW YORK - Major League Soccer (MLS) announced Wednesday morning that Columbus Crew forward Cucho Hernandez is September's MLS Player of the Month presented by CELSIUS.

Hernandez is the second Crew player to take home Player of the Month presented by CELSIUS honors, with former midfielder Lucas Zelarayan claiming the title for February and March of last year. Hernandez is also the fourth different Columbus player to earn the monthly accolade across the last 10 seasons, joining Justin Meram (October 2016), Zack Stefan (May 2018) and Zelarayan. Cucho becomes the first Colombian player to take the award since Fredy Montero won back in July 2010.

Hernandez continued his stellar performance into the month of September, recording eight goals and one assist in five games. Hernandez bagged a hat-trick against the Chicago Fire, where the forward recorded the second fastest hat-trick in MLS history, fourth fastest in Columbus Crew history. Cucho also notched a hat-trick against CF Montreal back on September 2, making it his first MLS hat-trick since joining the club last year. Hernandez became the first player since Josef Martinez in September 2017 to record multiple hat-tricks in the same month, scoring in four of the five matches, contributing nine to the clubs 12 goals of the month.

The Crew forward sits tied for second in the MLS Golden Boot race, tied at 14 while adding 11 assists across 24 games. Mounting a strong case for the Landon Donovan MVP award in his first full season as a member of the Black & Gold, Hernandez is a significant key to the Crew's offense. Hernandez currently sits tied for third in MLS with 25 goal contributions, and have helped the Crew (62 goals) to just the second season in Club history scoring more than 60 goals in one season.

Columbus currently sit in fifth place in the Eastern Conference (50 points, 14-9-8) and have clinched a spot in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time since the Crew won the 2020 MLS Cup.