Aubameyang Ends Hegemony in African Football Award
Gabon striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang finally ended the winning streak of Ivory Coast’s midfielder Yaya Toure to win the Confederation of African Football’s player of the year award.
Yaya Toure who scooped the prestigious individual accolade in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, failed to register his dominance during the 2015 African footballer of the year award.
In a vote of coaches and technical directors of Confederation of African member -nations, Aubameyang scored 143 points ahead of Manchester City and Ivory Coast midfielder Toure on 136 while Ghana and Swansea midfielder Ande Ayew scored 112 points.
The 26-year-old Gabon skipper has been in outstanding form this season for his club side Borussia Dortmund so far, scoring 18 goals in 17 league games.
In this contest between goals and glory, between net-bursting regularity and continental-conquering, the cold, hard stats of Aubameyang’s year have won out. And they’re numbers that make the heart beat just that little bit faster.
In 2015, the Dortmund forward scored 41 goals in all competitions, of which 18 have come in just 17 Bundesliga matches so far this term—making him the division’s top scorer by the year’s end.
His unswerving consistency of the end of last season (2014-2015), it’s worth noting that he only scored five league goals in the first half of the 2014-15 campaign, compared to 11 after the break, have given way to a relentless dominance over defenders this term.
Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba paid tribute to the Gabonese star who will be key to the country’s hopes of lifting the African Cup of Nations on home soil in 2017.
“The epitome of commitment and success at the highest level, this exceptional Gabonese demonstrated dazzling intuition and an attack of unparalleled velocity,” said the Gabon President in a statement.
“His genius is a major asset for the panthers in preparation for the next African Cup of Nations.
Aubameyang is the first player from his country to win the award. In 2014, he lost his first opportunity to win the award by losing to Yaya Toure.
At the beginning of the year, Yaya became the first player to win four times the African Player of the Year awards in a row, but by October, Aubameyang had made headlines of his own, becoming the first Bundesliga player to score in each of the first eight games of the season.
According to Goal.com, Beyond ending Toure’s hegemony of the award, Aubameyang may well have brought the curtain down on the cabal of truly world-class African players that established themselves as continental greats over the last decade and a half.
Between them, Yaya, Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o and Michael Essien, all of whom remain in football in some capacity, have 10 Caf POTY awards, eight second-placed finishes and nine third-placed finishes stretching back over the last 15 years—but it’s hard to see any of them truly challenge for the award again.
Aubameyang’s victory looks to have just heralded in a new era of African elite.
Other Award Winners
Victor Osimhen was crowned Youth Player of the Year after 10 goals in seven matches helped Nigeria win the Under-17 World Cup for a record fifth time.
Herve Renard, who managed Ivory Coast to their Africa Cup of Nations victory, won the coach of the year award. The Frenchman, who led Zambia to victory in the tournament in 2012, is the first person to coach two different countries to the title.
Mbwana Aly Samatta, the Tanzanian star who helped his club side TP Mazembe to the African Champions League title, was crowned African-based player of the year.
Mazembe were named club of the year, having also represented Africa at the Club World Cup, while Ivory Coast and Cameroon were respectively named men’s and women’s national team of the year.
Gaelle Enganamouit of Cameroon was named women’s player of the year. She starred as the Indomitable Lionesses reached the second round of the Women’s World Cup, having qualified for the tournament for the first time in their history.
Most Promising Talent of the Year – Peter Etebo Oghenejaro (Nigeria)
Referee of the Year – Papa Bakary Papa Gassama (The Gambia)
Leader of the Year – Abdiqani Said Arab (Somalia)
Fair Play Award – Allez Casa Supporters Group (Senegal)
African Legend – CK Gyamfi (Ghana) and Samuel Mbappe Leppe (Cameroon)
Africa’s Finest XI of 2015
Goalkeeper: Robert Kidiaba (DR Congo)
Defenders: Serge Aurier (Ivory Coast), Aymen Abdennour (Tunisia), Mohamed Meftah (Algeria)
Midfielders: Andre Ayew (Ghana), Yaya Toure (Ivory Coast), Sadio Mane (Senegal), Yacine Brahimi (Algeria),
Forwards: Mbwana Aly Samatta (Tanzania), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon), Baghdad Bounedjah (Algeria)