Bangkok: The three nominees for the AFC Player of the Year award and AFC Women's Player of the Year award are all worthy of winning the coveted award, to be presented in a glittering ceremony in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Omar Abdulrahman, Omar Khrbin and Wu Lei have all shown tremendous talent and promise as they represented club and country this year.
United Arab Emirates and Al Ain star, Omar Abdulrahman, who was the 2016 AFC Player of the Year, was thankful to be nominated once again for the prestigious award but acknowledged that the other contenders are worthy as well.
Despite exiting the AFC Champions League 2017 in the semi-finals, the 26-year-old said he was not surprised to be nominated again, as his performance this season recorded seven goals from the group stages to the Round of 16, and he was named Player of the Match four times.
“I am honoured to be here for the third year, and I wish the best of luck to the other nominees,” said the midfielder.
“I want to be nominated every year, and I want to continue winning titles for my club and national team.”
Khrbin has suffered several heartbreaks this year with the Syrian national team missing out on a FIFA World Cup 2018 Russia Inter-Continental Play-off after losing to Australia and Al Hilal’s loss to Urawa Red Diamonds in Saturday’s AFC Champions League 2017 final.
Despite the heartbreak, Khrbin remained thankful to his teammates, saying: “The national team performance were very good. We reached the Continental Play-offs, and with Al Hilal we did great by reaching the final.
“But it wasn’t only my own effort, my teammates contributed to all that. In the end, we didn’t get everything we wanted, but have to accept the loss the same way we accept a win.”
Shanghai SIPG winger Wu Lei was confident of his chances after being nominated for the second time in a row, saying: “First of all, this year is the second time I’ve been nominated for the award, which means a recognition from the AFC.
“So I believe this year I have a fighting chance to win the award.”
Similar to Al Ain, Shanghai exited the tournament in the semi-finals after losing to Guangzhou Evergrande, but Wu Lei believes the team will only get better.
“This is our second time playing in the AFC Champions League, and our results were better than before as we qualified for the semi-finals, and our performance recently is very good.
“My focus right now is helping Shanghai SIPG to win titles domestically, as well as the AFC Champions League.”
Wu Lei also praised Abdulrahman and Khrbin on their achievements this year but remained hopeful.
“All three of us are capable players and have our very own qualities, but I hope that I will win this year.”
Meanwhile, AFC Women Player of the year nominee Samantha Kerr thinks highly of the other two nominees - Japan’s Saki Kumagai and Sung Hyang Sim of DPR Korea - saying: “The other two nominees had a great year, so I’m honestly just very honoured to be nominated against other great footballers.
“I know two other Aussies have won it previously, and they are two players I look up to, so I’m very humbled to be nominated.
The three nominees missed out on The Best FIFA Women’s Player Award nomination this year but Kerr was not let down by it, and said it has only motivated her more.
“I don’t play for individual awards. And hopefully we will have great success in next year’s AFC Women’s Asian Cup in Jordan and the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.”
Photos: AFC
Source: the-afc.com