Even while he waits for his first taste of action at Bayern Munich, Alphonso Davies keeps racking up the accolades.
This week, the departing Vancouver Whitecaps winger was voted the 2018 Postmedia Male Athlete of the Year by sportswriters and editors from across Canada, becoming the first soccer player to win the award, as well adding to an already-impressive 2018 haul.
Signed by the Whitecaps as a 15-year-old, Davies enjoyed his breakout MLS season in 2018. He scored eight goals and added 11 assists across 31 games (27 starts), including a signature two-goal, two-assist performance on July 28, just days after finalizing an MLS-record transfer that could to Bayern Munich that could be worth up to $22 million, and being named to his first MLS All-Star team.
Davies, who was born in Ghana to a family of Liberian refugees, moved to Canada when he was five and has cemented himself as a regular with the Canadian national team. In large part thanks to Davies' four assists while playing all 270 minutes of Concacaf Nations League qualifying, Canada remain on course to secure a berth in the 2019 Gold Cup.
The Postmedia award is separate from the Lou Marsh Trophy (for Canada's best overall athlete of any gender) and Lionel Conacher Award (also for best male athlete), both of which were one by freestyle skier Mikael Kingsbury after his gold-medal showing in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. Davies finished third in the voting for the Conacher Award, behind Kingsbury and Edmonton Oilers phenom Connor McDavid.
Davies' next challenge will be cementing himself at one of the world's premier clubs in Bayern, where head coach Niko Kovac has already teased a first-team debut for the Whitecaps academy product.
