2008 Footballer of the Year Award Winners — Part III

The final install­ment of the Award Win­ners series will fea­ture the can­di­dates for the African Player of the Year.  The win­ner of the 2007 award went to Sevilla’s Mali striker Frédéric Kanouté.

Kanouté was the 1st African P.O.Y. not to be born in Africa, but this year’s can­di­dates & even­tual win­ner were all born on the African con­ti­nent. The WCB list of can­di­dates is slightly dif­fer­ent from short­list that was for­mally announced so here are our three top can­di­dates for African Foot­baller Of The Year (in no par­tic­u­lar order):

Mohamed Aboutrika

He is the best African foot­baller ply­ing his trade in Africa. Even though he wears No. 22, he has the skills of a true No. 10. Aboutrika led Egypt to its 5th African Cup of Nations title, scor­ing the tro­phy clincher in the final vs. Cameroon. He fin­ished tied for 2nd on the tournament’s goal scor­ing list. Despite injury he has been instru­men­tal in lead­ing African super­club Al-Ahly to the 2008 CAF Cham­pi­ons League Final. It is the 4th time in the last 4 years that Al-Ahly has reached the final. Aboutrika could break Cameroon hearts twice in 2008 because his Al-Ahly team is on the verge of defeat­ing Cameroon side Coton­sport Garoua in the final and thus lead­ing Al-Ahly to a record 6th African Club title.

Samuel Eto’o

He wasn’t on the announced for­mal short­list for the award and as a 3-time win­ner he’s already had his time but in ’08, Eto’o was great. He was the lead­ing goal scorer in the African Cup of Nations in lead­ing Cameroon to a sur­prise final appear­ance. Despite miss­ing time dur­ing Barca’s sea­son due to the Cup of Nations and injury he still man­aged 16 goals in 18 La Liga appear­ances. He didn’t have the hard­ware like Aboutrika but he was still a beast and fin­ished with same tro­phy count as Michael Essien and as many goals as Didier Drogba.

Emmanuel Ade­bayor

The tall lanky for­ward from Togo had a break­out sea­son for Arse­nal.  Under Arsene Wenger’s flow­ing, sharp cut­ting pass­ing sys­tem, Ade­bayor flour­ished scor­ing 24 goals in the Pre­mier­ship fin­ish­ing 2nd along with Liverpool’s Fer­nando Tor­res and behind Man U’s Cris­tiano Ronaldo.  Togo did not par­tic­i­pate in the African Cup of Nations but his break­out Pre­mier­ship cam­paign make him a legit­i­mate can­di­date for African Player of the Year and a force on the Euro­pean club scene and Togo national team for a good while.

The win­ner of the title of African Foot­baller of the Year is:
Mohamed Aboutrika

The Egypt­ian play­maker is the deserv­ing win­ner of African Player of the Year because he per­formed great in the biggest stages at both the club and national team lev­els. The same argu­ment made ear­lier for Jof­fre Guer­ron and his South Amer­i­can Player of the Year can be made for Mohamed Aboutrika. The best player on the best club team and in Aboutrika’s case, the best player on the best national team in Africa. He would make his­tory if he wins the African P.O.Y. because since the Con­fed­er­a­tion of African Foot­ball gave out the award in 1992, no Egypt­ian has ever won. We should see soon, a Pharaoh once again reign­ing over Africa.

Tagged as: Africa, Africa P.O.Y., Award Winners, Emmanuel Adebayor, Mohamed Aboutrika, Samuel Eto'o