Will Ademola Lookman and Barbra Banda have a chance at FIFA’s 2024 Ballon d’Or ceremony?
The elite of international football will gather in Paris’s Theatre du Chatelet on Monday to honor the world’s most popular sport and select the 2024 Ballon d’Or winners for both men’s and women’s football.
George Weah is the only African player to have won the sport’s greatest individual accolade, and although the continent has a number of nominees for this year’s awards, are any of them real contenders?
The hopefuls for the women’s Ballon d’Or are Banda and Chawinga.
Two African athletes have received nominations for the Ballon d’Or Feminin for the first time in its six-year history.
For background, only twice in the award’s history has an African Asisat Oshoala of Bay FC was shortlisted in 2022 and 2023, but this time around, two players from the continent are among the top 30 in the globe.
Oshoala has no place, but Barbra Banda of Orlando Pride and Tabitha Chawinga of Lyon are vying to be Africa’s first-ever women’s award winner in her place.Even though they may both recall outstanding performances during the relevant time period, they are really both behind Aitana Bonmatí, Caroline Graham Hansen, and Ada Hagerberg in the hierarchy.
After joining Orlando from China in a £582000 ($740000) contract, Banda scored 13 goals in 21 games this year, including five “match-winning strikes.” She is now the second most expensive African player in history, only surpassed by fellow Zambian striker Racheal Kundananji.
It has undoubtedly helped to have a solid relationship with the legendary Brazil striker Marta. “A dream has come true.”
“Based on our interactions and how she treated me like a younger sister, she is a legend and a very good person. It’s really fantastic.
Despite Zambia’s early elimination from the Olympic Games, she once again demonstrated her strength by scoring a hat-trick to match the two she had scored in Japan three years prior. This made her the first woman in history to score three goals in three different tournament games.
With four goals at the end of the season, she trailed only Marie-Antoinette Katoto, another Ballon d’Or nominee, solidifying her status as one of the best women in the sport. However, she seems to be only behind the front-runners for the 2024 awards ceremony.
She scored 19 goals for Paris Saint-Germain while on loan from Wuhan Jianghan University, making her the leading assist-maker and scorer in Ligue 1 Feminin the previous season. After a string of outstanding Champions League performances, she was rightfully crowned PSG’s Player of the Season.
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