Few players have had a start to the Major League Soccer season as good as Carlos Vela in recent years.

The LAFC forward scored six goals and recorded three assists in the first five games of the season to earn the honor of SBI Player of the Month.

Vela’s best performance was his last, as he produced a hat-trick and an assist in LAFC’s thumping of the San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday.

The Mexican international has a pair of multiple-goal performances to his name, which is one away from matching his total from the entire 2018 campaign.

Vela leads the Golden Boot race by two goals over Wayne Rooney, Memo Rodriguez and Krisztian Nemeth and he is tied with eight other players for the league lead in assists.

Vela beat out a strong field of Player of the Month contenders, including Rooney, Alberth Elis, Darwin Quintero, Nicolas Lodeiro and Johnny Russell.