JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Another chapter in the personal rivalry between
former Liverpool teammates Sadio Mane and
Mohamed Salah will play out in Rabat
on Thursday when the annual African award winners are announced.
اضافة اعلان
Mane was a key
figure in the Senegal team that defeated Salah-captained Egypt in the 2021/2022
Africa Cup of Nations final and in a 2022 World Cup play-off.
Both the African
title decider in Cameroon and the Qatar eliminator in Senegal were won by the
Teranga Lions after penalty shootouts.
Mane scored in each
shootout while the final was decided before Salah could take his kick, and he
blazed wide in the play-off.
The Senegalese
successes have made Mane favorite to win a second straight Player of the Year
award after 2019 — the following two editions were canceled due to the
coronavirus pandemic.
Should Mane win in
the Moroccan capital, he will become the first Bayern Munich star to be voted
the top African footballer.
The closest a
player from the German giants has come to winning was in 1999 and 2001 when
Ghanaian Samuel Kuffour finished second.
Mane moved to
Bayern last month on a three-year deal after joining Liverpool in 2016 from
Southampton and Anfield boss Jurgen Klopp calls him “a complete forward”.
“My only criticism
of Sadio is that maybe at times he is the only one not to realize just how good
he is.”
Liverpool defender
Andy Robertson hailed the predatory instincts of the 30-year-old: “Whenever he
is in front of the goal you do not think he will miss.”
Salah lifted the
award in 2017 and 2018 and the victory of Mane the following year raised to
four the number of winners from Liverpool with another Senegalese, El Hadji
Diouf, topping the 2002 vote.
South Africans dominate women hopefuls
The Egyptian had an outstanding 2021–2022 season for the Reds, sharing the
Golden Boot award with South Korean
Son Heung-min of Tottenham Hotspur.
Salah was voted
Premier League Player of the Season by both the Professional Footballers’
Association and the Football Writers’ Association.
Algeria captain and
Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez is the other former winner among the 10
nominees having come first in 2016 after helping rank outsiders Leicester City
become Premier League champions.
Mahrez and Algeria
have struggled lately, however, with the defending champions making a
humiliating first round exit from the Cup of Nations, then losing a World Cup
play-off against Cameroon.
The 10 candidates
for the Club Player of the Year include Brazilian Tiago Azulao, whose
chart-topping seven goals in the CAF Champions League took Angolan outfit Petro
Luanda to a surprise semi-finals spot.
South Africans
dominate the Women’s Player of the Year nominees with 2018 winner Thembi
Kgatlana, Andile Dlamini, Refiloe Jane and Bambanani Mbane among 10 hopefuls.
Ghana, notable
absentees from the ongoing Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco after
losing a first round qualifier against Nigeria, have two representatives,
Evelyn Badu and Doris Boaduwaa.
Nigeria, the
powerhouse of women’s football in Africa for decades, has one candidate, highly
decorated Asisat Oshoala, who plays for 2022 European Champions League
runners-up Barcelona.
Ruled out of the
Cup of Nations in Morocco by injury, Oshoala has been voted African Player of
the Year four times, most recently in 2019.
Choosing the best
women’s national team will be delayed until after the Cup of Nations final
between Morocco and South Africa in Rabat on Saturday.
African football legends, CAF technical committee members,
coaches, and captains of national teams and of some clubs and selected media
pick the winners.
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