David Accam named MLS Player of the Week

Philadelphia Union forward David Accam was named the MLS Player of the Year for the second time in his career after his emotional two-goal performance in a 3-0 win over Columbus Crew on Saturday night.

Playing a few days after his father, Michael Accam, lost his bought with cancer, the Ghanaian scored a pair of goals in the first half. He scored two goals in all competitions — 1 in league play and one in the U.S. Open Cup — last season in his disappointing first campaign for the Union that was cut short when he underwent a sports hernia operation in the fall.

“He really stepped up, not just because he scores two goals, but his work rate defensively on the counter attack giving us time to breathe just a really top performance from David,” head coach Jim Curtin said after Saturday’s match. “Credit to him because he has put a lot into the offseason coming back from injury and again really happy for him. He is a great kid, he has been professional throughout his entire time here and he just wants to help and reward the fans and reward his teammates and he did that tonight, which was a special moment for David.”

Accam received 54.3 percent of the vote (60.5 percent from media, 35.8 percent from fan vote) to beat out FC Cincinnati ‘s Kenny Saeif for the honor. The media vote, conducted by the North American Soccer Reporters, makes up 75 percent of the balloting with fans participating in 25 percent via a Twitter poll run by the league.

He becomes the 10th different player in Union history to win the MLS Player of the Week award, joining Sebastien Le Toux (2010, 2x), Justin Mapp (2011), Jack McInerney (2013), Chris Pontius (2016), Roland Alberg (2016), Ilsinho (2016), CJ Sapong (2017), Borek Dockal (2018) and Jay Simpson (2018).

Alejandro Bedoya and Accam were both named to the MLS Team of the Week and defender Jack Elliott was an honorable mention.

Just 10 of the league’s 24 teams were in action over the weekend with many earning an international week bye.