Valour FC attacker William Akio has been named CanPL.ca Player of the Month for the month of October after leading his attacking line to a dramatic turnaround for the Winnipeg side chasing a playoff spot.

Akio, 23, scored five goals in the month – including in wins over Forge FC, HFX Wanderers FC, and Cavalry FC – as he’s thrived under new coach Phil Dos Santos. The sharp, quick-thinking attacker’s best performance came in arguably Valour’s biggest ever victory – a 4-2 win over Cavalry last week – where he scored twice and added an assist.

“When you get a new coach the energy changes, it’s like we’ve been born again,” Akio said after the match. “We had to go into these last few games with 100 per cent belief no matter what and that’s paid off.”

“When we look at him on a daily basis he does all the right things,” Dos Santos added. “To have him here today to do this in front of his family, that meant so much to our team.”

Valour has a chance at qualifying for the fourth and final playoff spot – first they need to beat FC Edmonton this Saturday (3:30pm ET/1:30pm CT) and hope results go their way with fourth-place York United and their final two matches.

Akio joins HFX Wanderers FC’s Joao Morelli (September), Cavalry’s Mo Farsi (August), and Pacific FC’s Marco Bustos (July) as other monthly winners.