Albert Dikwa has been the breakout star of the Hounds’ 2023 season, and with 17 goals in USL Championship play, he enters the final four weeks of the regular campaign with a chance to be the team’s first Golden Boot winner in a decade.
But the goal total Dikwa has posted in his fourth year with the Hounds is also in rare company in club history, and an outside shot still remains for the Cameroonian striker to challenge for the team’s single-season scoring record that has stood for 20 years.
Adding in his game-winning goal against the Columbus Crew in the U.S. Open Cup — team records include all competitive matches, not just the regular season — Dikwa has 18 goals this season. That puts him five behind the mark of 23 goals set by Thiago Martins, the 2003 A-League MVP and top scorer, a tough target to hit but not impossible for a player prone to scoring in bunches.
Dikwa’s season, were it to end today, would rank third in Hounds history, which makes it a perfect time to look back and compare the 2003 season of Martins, Rob Vincent‘s 21-goal 2015 campaign and Dikwa’s current breakout year.
#1 — Thiago Martins, 2003 — 23 goals (22 league goals)
Martins came to the Hounds from the Minnesota Thunder in the second half of 2022, and he put the A-League on notice with the club’s first-ever four-goal game in the 2002 season finale, a 7-0 win over the Cincinnati Riverhawks. Once the 2003 season started, it was clear Martins would be a force from the opening match, as he scored a pair of goals in a 5-0 win on the road at a Charlotte Eagles side led by future Hounds head coach Mark Steffens.
The Brazilian put together as consistent of a season as one could ask for, as he racked up his record goal total without a hat trick all season, finding the net in 19 of 25 league matches he appeared. Martins also scored in the team’s lone Open Cup match of the year, a 2-1 defeat in the Third Round at MLS club D.C. United, which brought his total to 23 goals in 26 games.
The one advantage Dikwa could have in his chase for the top spot is a postseason run. The 2003 Hounds posted an impressive 15-9-4 record, but they came up just short of reaching the playoffs out of the Northeast Division — two points behind the Rochester Raging Rhinos and five behind the division-winning Montreal Impact under current Hounds coach Bob Lilley.
Dikwa, on the other hand, could have as many eight matches remaining with a Hounds run to the USL Championship Final, something he is targeting even more than a Golden Boot.
#2 — Rob Vincent, 2015 — 21 goals (18 league goals)
While Martins was an established scorer before he arrived in Pittsburgh, Vincent’s 2015 season was more of a surprise. After all, the English midfielder had only seven goals in his first two pro seasons with the Hounds.
But with the arrival of the aforementioned Steffens as head coach, Vincent was moved from a holding midfield role to a more advanced position as a winger and attacking midfielder, and that allowed his powerful and accurate right-footed shot to be on full display.
Once again, the season opener was a sign of what was to come. Vincent scored twice — in addition to assisting two of Kevin Kerr‘s three goals — in a 5-2 romp over the Harrisburg City Islanders. He scored in bunches in 2015 with six multi-goal games, including his only career hat trick in a 3-0 win Aug. 1 at home over the Wilmington Hammerheads, and no one owned the Highmark Stadium turf better, as he netted 15 of his 21 strikes at home.
Vincent’s 18 league goals are the most by a Hounds player in the “modern” USL Championship, but he also came up big in knockout play with goals in three consecutive Open Cup matches — a 3-0 win over West Virginia Chaos; a 90th-minute wonder goal to beat the Tampa Bay Rowdies, 1-0; and a penalty kick to level the score in an eventual 3-1 extra time defeat against D.C. United, his future MLS club. In total, he appeared in all but one of a possible 32 matches that season to set the club’s top scoring mark by a midfielder.
Dikwa still needs three goals to catch Vincent’s overall total, but if he can get one goal in the next four matches, that would pull him level for the team’s best regular season haul in the Championship era.
#3 — Albert Dikwa, 2023 — 18 goals (17 league goals)
That brings us to Dikwa, the current Golden Boot co-leader, who has the chance to be the first to claim that award for Pittsburgh since José Angulo did so with 15 goals over a 26-game schedule in 2013.
The common thread among each of the top scoring seasons is a fast start. Though Dikwa was held off the board in this year’s season opener at Birmingham, he came out firing in the second game with his first career hat trick in a 3-1 win at Memphis 901 FC.
He continued at a blistering pace with 10 goals by the end of May, including the only tally in the Hounds’ 1-0 win over the Columbus Crew of MLS in the Open Cup, but the momentum got derailed in the cup quarterfinals on June 6, when Dikwa suffered a broken collarbone early in the match against FC Cincinnati. After a little more than a month to heal, Dikwa regained his spot in the lineup, and by the start of August, he was back to his rapid scoring pace with seven goals in seven matches since Aug. 1.
As a result of the injury, Dikwa’s total games played won’t be vastly different from that of Martins or Vincent. Should Dikwa appear in the final four regular-season matches, he will have played 28 league games and 31 overall entering the playoffs.
Dikwa downplayed the chase for individual honors when he spoke to reporters after another two-goal performance Sept. 9 against Loudoun, saying: “It’s always about the team for me. We’re like a family, they’re my brothers, and I’m ready to go to war with them. My focus right now is to just help the team, get the trophy and get the championship.”
Given Dikwa’s importance spearheading the Hounds attack this season, it’s more likely than not that team success and further scoring success for Dikwa will stay hand-in-hand down the stretch.
