Forward of Monday’s (at this time’s) CAF awards ceremony in Marrakesh, Morocco, the Nigeria Soccer Federation has thrown its weight behind Nigerian stars, Ademola Lookman and Chiamaka Nnadozie, who’re within the run for CAF Participant of The 12 months awards within the males’s and girls’s classes respectively, The PUNCH reviews.
Lookman and Tremendous Falcons goalkeeper Nnadozie lead Nigeria’s contest for honours at this yr’s CAF occasion, because the nation is in line for seven awards.
The boys’s class is locked in a decent race between Lookman and 4 different contenders. The 27-year-old will vie for the boys’s Participant of The 12 months Award the place with Ivory Coast’s Simon Adingra and PSG’s Achraf Hakimi, Guinea striker Serhou Guirassy and South Africa goalkeeper Ronwen Williams.
On the eve of the ceremony, the NFF in a press release titled; ‘2024 CAF Awards: Lookman is the person, whichever manner you take a look at it!’ went all out to root for the Atalanta Star and the goalkeeper.
“All issues being equal, Nigeria’s Ademola Lookman must be topped the African Participant of The 12 months at Monday night’s 2024 CAF Awards on the Palais des Congrés within the Moroccan metropolis of Marrakech,” NFF’s spokesperson, Ademola Olajire wrote.
“Not one of the 4 different remaining nominees comes shut. Ivorian Simon Adingra, whose exceptional second-half efficiency noticed the Elephants overcome Nigeria within the AFCON Ultimate in Abidjan on February 11, can’t level to such a glittering report with English Premier League membership, Brighton.”
Nnadozie may also be gunning for 2 honours as she is within the combine for the Ladies’s Participant of The 12 months award together with Morocco’s Sanaa Mssoudy and Zambia’s Babra Banda. The Paris FC shot-stopper can also be a favorite for a back-to-back win within the Ladies’s Goalkeeper of The 12 months class.
“Within the girls’s class, Nigeria’s Chiamaka Nnadozie is a worthy contender for the Participant of The 12 months (gained for the sixth time final yr by compatriot Asisat Oshoala), and the gong will cap a exceptional yr for the soft-spoken secure palms who helped Nigeria re-appear on the Ladies’s Olympic Soccer Match after 16 years, was key to the Falcons’ qualification for subsequent yr’s AFCON and drew rave opinions throughout with French membership, Paris FC.”
Wins for each gamers within the high classes will see Nigeria produce the winners of each awards for the third time – Nwankwo Kanu and Mercy Akide-Udoh in 1999, and Victor Osimhen and Asisat Oshoala in 2023.
Lookman’s credentials for the boys’s honour embrace his pivotal three objectives and two assists which powered Nigeria to their eighth AFCON remaining in Ivory Coast in February, his hat-trick in a 3-0 win which handed Italian aspect, Atalanta the UEFA Europa League on the expense of hitherto-rampaging German aspect, Bayer Leverkusen in Might.
This season, he has notched 11 objectives and 5 assists in 18 appearances in all competitions for Atalanta (together with a objective in opposition to report winners Actual Madrid FC within the UEFA Champions League) and scored two objectives as Nigeria certified for the thirty fifth AFCON finals, with two different objectives controversially chalked off.
In the meantime, the Tremendous Eagles and the Tremendous Falcons are within the run for the Nationwide Workforce of the 12 months. The Tremendous Eagles had been nominated alongside AFCON 2023 winners Ivory Coast, and South Africa whereas the Tremendous Falcons had been nominated with Morocco and the Banyana Banyana of South Africa.
Additionally, Falconets and Rivers Angels ahead, Chiamaka Okwuchukwu was named within the remaining three for the Ladies’s Younger Participant of The 12 months award alongside FC Masar’s Habiba Sabry and Asfar’s Doha El Madani.
Chiamaka was one of many stars of the FIFA U-20 Ladies’s World Cup regardless of the early exit of the Falconets. Recording two objectives and one help as she led Nigeria to the spherical of 16.
To cap a formidable checklist of nominations for Nigerian girls’s soccer, the Nigeria Ladies Soccer League champions, Edo Queens may also contend for the Ladies’s Membership of The 12 months award alongside CAF Ladies’s Champions League winners TP Mazembe and Asfar.