Cameroon maybe facing dwindling fortunes at the level of the football national team but the players continues to fly the flag of the nation high within football circles, thanks to their individual talents. Two Cameroonians feature among the nominee for the 2011 GLO-CAF African best player award. Samuel Eto’o will be representing the country in the category of players based outside the continent while Yaya Bana was nominated among the players eveolving on the African continent.
Eto’o may not be among the favourites to win the trophy this time but the fact that he features among the best ten on the continent, is a source of pride to the nation. Eto’o is a top drawer performer, having won the coveted title four times; three consecutively and has won a lot in his career. In 2011, he won just a single trophy with Inter Milan, the Italian Cup and was named man of the match in the final, having scored two of the three goals. He scored 21 goals in 35 matches in the championship with lots of decisive passes too. In spite of his four goals in the qualifiers Cameroon failed to qualify for the 2012 CAN. He was transferred for a three-year contract in August 2011 for 27 million Euros to FK Anzhi Makhatchkala, in the Russian championship.
The favourite in this category is Moussa. The Senegalese striker born in France won the French championship and French Cup with Lille in 2011. He scored 25 goals in the championship with two hat-tricks, making him the most deadly attacker in the championship. He is also part of the new generation of the Senegalese national team which prevailed over Cameroon and DR Congo in the 2012 CAN qualifiers. Sow scored 5 goals in the qualifiers and will be one of those to watch in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
Yaya Banana is a budding tall and strong Cameroonian defender playing with Esperance since 2009. He won the Tunisian Cup and the Championship title and qualified for the final of the Champions League. He has been an influential national team player with Cameroon’s U-20 team which reached the finals of the African Youth Championship in South Africa and reached the quarter-finals of the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Colombia this year. His talent caught the eye of Dennis Lavagne who summoned him for the first time to join the senior national team. However, the player wasn’t able to honour the rendezvous of the LG tournament in Morocco due to the involvement of his club in the final of the African Champions League against Wydad of Casablanca. The winner will be decided by votes from the Head Coaches or the Technical Directors of the National Associations affiliated to CAF.
The Awards Gala will be held on on Thursday, December 22 in Accra, Ghana. It will be the third time the Ghanaian capital will be hosting the annual event after 2006 and 2009.
