5 MVP moments from Sebastian Giovinco's award-winning 2015 season

The Atomic Ant is the 2015 MLS Most Valuable Player.

Toronto FC forward Sebastian Giovinco accepted the MLS Landon Donovan MVP Award on Wednesday, capping off an award-winning year that saw him win the MLS Golden Boot and Newcomer of the Year awards, as well as break single-season and historic records for both his club and the league.

With his latest accolade now claimed, here are five moments from the 2015 season that made Giovinco oh so very valuable for Toronto FC and for MLS:

5) A nine-minute hat trick at Yankee Stadium

Legends of baseball have graced the grass at Yankee Stadium, their performances now memories etched in the game's history. Soccer, like baseball and many other sports, seduces hope and breaks hearts in the blink of an eye - perhaps even more so, as that cycle of love and pain plays out on a worldwide scale.

For both Toronto FC and New York City, both the bliss and the pain of soccer were on full display for 90 minutes in one July match: Giovinco scored a hat trick in nine minutes, and, as a response to each marker, New York scored, too. It was a dance of wills at the Bronx, with the Atomic Ant trying his mightiest to down his foe and Toronto's backline helping New York thwart the effort.

It accounted for the third-fastest hat trick in MLS history, but it was all for naught, as the two teams split the points in a 4-4 draw.

4) Making MLS statistical history

Before Giovinco, there was San Jose Earthquakes forward Chris Wondolowski - well, at least on paper.

Wondolowski set the record for most combined points in MLS history back in 2012, scoring 27 goals and adding seven assists for a 34-point season. He held that title for three years, until Giovinco beat it at the end of September with a goal and an assist against the Chicago Fire, then finished with 38 points combined.

Giovinco is also the only player to score more than 20 goals while simultaneously recording more than 10 assists.

3) A free-kick screamer from 30 yards out

Giovinco's goals often come from open play, but, every so often, the Atomic Ant stands in front of a wall of opposition defenders, sizes them up, and smacks a free-kick like a dagger to the side.

There's no stopping it. You can push him over and draw a foul or a yellow card when he's running at you, but there's no way of stopping some of Giovinco's free-kick goals. And you're not safe, even from 30 yards out. When Giovinco hits the dead ball just right, opposition outfits have to concede they'll be conceding.

What can teams even do here? Not much, if it's the Philadelphia Union.

2) Shaming the New England Revolution

Giovinco is many things, a goal-scorer evidently chief among them. But, it wasn't his 22 goals and 16 assists that single-handedly won him the MVP title (though it did win him the Golden Boot) - no, it was his ability to dazzle on the ball, showing off tricks, flicks, and skills that got him into space and left defenders bamboozled and confused in the dust.

No moment better encapsulated Giovinco's raw talent and skill than this double nutmeg against the New England Revolution. Watch it a million times, and it will always be incredible.

As ESPN analyst Taylor Twellman would say: "Are you kidding me? Oh, just stop it!"

1) Scoring THAT playoff-clinching goal

It will forever be remembered in Toronto FC lore.

Eight years of failure, suddenly erased. A spot in the MLS playoffs, clinched at long, long last. With every flick, turn, cut-in, and step, Giovinco scrawled his name into the history books, ink - rather, tears from the club's loyal supporters - dotting the pages and the stands.

The look on local players Jonathan Osorio's and Ashtone Morgan's faces says it all - this goal made Giovinco a legend in the city of Toronto.