Josef Martínez Earns Player of the Matchday 7 After Historic Hat Trick for San Jose

Josef Martínez made MLS history once again. The San Jose Earthquakes striker was named MLS Player of the Matchday 7 after scoring a sensational hat trick in a 6-1 thrashing of D.C. United. With seven career hat tricks, Martínez now holds the all-time league record for most hat tricks, surpassing all others—no player has more than five.

His first goal of the night brought his MLS career total to 120, pushing him past Bradley Wright-Phillips into sixth place on the all-time scoring chart. Martínez is now just 13 goals shy of tying Jaime Moreno for fifth place with 133 goals.

Remarkably, this was his first hat trick in nearly seven years—six years and 259 days to be exact—marking the second-longest gap between hat tricks in league history, only behind Dwayne De Rosario.

With this award, Martínez becomes just the sixth player in MLS history to win Player of the Matchday honors at least 10 times, joining elite company such as Landon Donovan, Jeff Cunningham, and Chris Wondolowski.

San Jose now has 10 points this season and will look to build on their momentum next Saturday in a rivalry match against LAFC.