Egyptian football awards
By Guillaume Mahot
The Confederation of African Football, ruled by Malagasy president Ahmad Ahmad, was taking up residence in Hurghada, Egypt, to award African football in this early January (last Tuesday). The accomplishments realized in 2019 enabled to reward men, women and countries, sometimes leading to discussions and debates, which is basically logical when it comes to football.
First of all and the most expected, the prize of the 2019 best player was granted to Senegalese winger Sadio Mané (Liverpool), who was competing with Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City) and his teammate in club Mohamed Salah, who won the 2018 and the 2017 editions. Winner of many trophies including the most prestigious one with the Champions’ League grabbed in May with the Reds against Tottenham (2-0), the first European trophy since 2005 for the club of the Mersey, Sadio Mané is achieving an incredible 2019/2020 season that could even urge him to do better in 2020, which is already hard given what was done last year.
[bctt tweet=”Meaningful, tweetable article.”]Defeated in final of the African Cup of Nations (0-1 against Algeria), Mané is also present in the 2019 best African squad with two other Senegalese players, Idrissa Gueye (PSG) and Kalidou Koulibaly (Napoli). A team completed by Onana, Aurier, Matip, Hakimi, Mahrez, Ziyech, Salah and Aubameyang. Not many midfielders to stabilize the team if they had to play for real!
The best team was, without any surprise, the African Cup winner Algeria, who also saw his coach Djamel Belmadi get the prize of best 2019 coach.
The best youngster’s prize was given to Borussia Dortmund and Moroccan right back Achraf Hakimi, who will challenge PSG in the upcoming round of 16 of the Champions’ League next month.
Asisat Oshoala (Nigeria) was awarded best player in the women category for her performances in Champions’ League (final with Barcelona) and with the national team (round of 16 in the 2019 World Cup). The best women’s squad was Cameroon.
Africa Global News Publication
