I’m pretty sure it’s an unofficial rule in MLS that scoring a hat-trick gets you an automatic spot in the league’s Team Of The Week honors.
In any event, I was so confident that Golden Boot leader Nemanja Nikolic would get a TOTW nod for his hat-trick in the Chicago Fire’s 3-2 win over the Philadelphia Union yesterday that I wrote this post last night.
Niko’s goal tally put him at 24 on the season, three goals clear in the Golden Boot race with just one matchweek remaining in the regular season. (It was four goals clear at the full-time whistle, but Diego Valeri scored later in the evening in Portland’s 4-0 romp over DC United.