Four-time winner of previous years Son from Tottenham did not make it into the top 3
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced three nominees for the award Asia’s Best International Footballer 2023.
Among the contenders is Porto forward Mehdi TaremiBrighton winger Kaoru Mitoma and defender of Bayern Kim Min-jae.
Taremi, 31, is Porto’s long-time leader and goalscorer. He scored 82 goals in 159 matches for the club. At the end of the 2022/23 season, Mehdi became the top scorer of the Portuguese Primeira Liga (22 goals). True, this season he has scored only twice.
Mitoma, 26, showed dramatic improvement over the course of the previous season. Currently, Kaoru is the leader of Brighton, who has scored 10 goals and 11 assists in less than a full calendar year.
26-year-old Kim became the champion of Italy in 2023 with Napoli, then moved to Bayern for 50 million euros, where he immediately became a starter – 12 matches in all tournaments.
This award is traditionally awarded to the strongest Asian players playing outside their native continent.
Four times over the past 8 years, the winner of the award was Tottenham forward Son Heung-min, who, however, this time did not make it into the top three contenders.
Source: Sportarena
I’m Scott Moore, a professional writer and journalist based in the US. I’ve been writing for various publications for over 8 years now, and have been working as an author at athletistic for the past five years. My work has been featured by some of the leading sports websites and magazines across Europe.
