FC Cincinnati forward Brenner, for the second time during the 2022 season, has been named MLS Player of the Week presented by Continental Tire.
The Brazilian’s latest honor comes after Week 30, in which he scored a hat trick and added an assist in their record-setting 6-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes at TQL Stadium Saturday night. The Orange & Blue, a 2019 expansion side, scored six goals in an MLS game for the first time in club history.
The 22-year-old, who also won the award following Week 17, joins Nashville SC’s Hany Mukhtar and the Philadelphia Union’s Julian Carranza as the only players to win MLS Player of the Week honors multiple times in 2022. Mukhtar has won three times (Weeks 16, 28 and 29), while Carranza has won twice (Weeks 19 and 26).
Brenner, who joined Cincinnati ahead of the 2021 MLS season on a reported $13 million deal from Sao Paulo FC, has 12 goals and five assists on the year. He’s their second-leading scorer behind strike partner Brandon Vazquez (16g, 5a), and Cincinnati are one of three clubs in MLS this season to have multiple players score at least 10 goals, joining the Union and LA Galaxy.
Among players that entered MLS in 2021 or later, the Brazilian forward joins LAFC’s Cristian Arango (30), Austin FC’s Sebastián Driussi (25), and Philadelphia’s Daniel Gazdag (23) as the only players to score at least 20 goals over that time span. He has 20g/7a in 58 games (51 starts).
Cincinnati will look to extend their unbeaten run to 10 games when visiting Real Salt Lake on Saturday (9:30 pm ET | MLS LIVE on ESPN+). They sit sixth in the Eastern Conference table, on track for a first-ever Audi MLS Cup Playoffs trip.
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.
