It has been just over four months since Victor Osimhen was crowned African Player of the Year by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the first Nigerian to be accorded that honour since Nwankwo Kanu in 1999.
Already, though, African football fans are scanning the radar for which player will claim the award next. That may be because the prospective winner is unlikely to be Osimhen, given the torrid season his club, Napoli, have had after the 2022/23 Scudetto-winning campaign.
Osimhen himself has seen his own standards drop; 17 strikes in all competitions thus far this season is fine, but certainly a significant downgrade on last term's stunning 31 in 39. And there is not much from his recent international activity to tip the odds in Osimhen's favour this time.
He did not exactly have a great personal outing at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) earlier this year, and unless Osimhen goes on a really spectacular run from now until when the award is handed out — whether or not he remains in Naples beyond the summer — it would be someone else's coronation next time around.
Who could dethrone Victor Osimhen?
In trying to identify who that worthy successor might be, the 2024 AFCON seems like a natural starting point — but not a very helpful one in this case.
The big names — Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, and, yes, Osimhen — did not shine as brightly as expected, and even the team which eventually triumphed, hosts Ivory Coast, only achieved what they did by dint of collective effort and an unusually huge slice of good fortune.
Most likely, then, the winner would be the player who has made the biggest splash on the elite European footballing scene this season — yet, even with that criteria, you would not find many candidates in the mix.
Ghana's Mohammed Kudus, after the blistering debut season in England he has had on the books of West Ham United, comes to mind.
Kudus arrived in the British capital late in the transfer window and racked up a total of 18 goals/assists for his new club — to add to the five he arrived with from the first few weeks of the season spent with Ajax Amsterdam before completing his mega move.
Kudus’ sterling efforts, however, have not done much to boost West Ham's fortunes. The club's failure to defend their UEFA Europa League title, an underwhelming Premier League campaign, and Kudus’ own limited impact at the AFCON for his national team, the Black Stars, may well provide ammunition to counter any argument there is for him to be named Ghana's first African Player of the Year in over three decades.
If not him, then, who else?
Why Bayer Leverkusen's Victor Boniface stands tall
No African player has had a better season, arguably, than Victor Boniface, who has helped Bayer Leverkusen win a maiden Bundesliga title.
En route to that conquest, Leverkusen did not lose a single game, and they remain unbeaten in all competitions.
Die Werkself are, in fact, just one game away from claiming outright the all-time record of invincibility currently held jointly with the great Benfica team of the sixties — and from immortality.
Interestingly, the season could get even better silverware-wise, with Leverkusen within striking distance of a treble. Only four matches separate them from DFB-Pokal and Europa League glory.
That, though not quite possessing the same sheen, would truly banish any lingering memories of the more glittering version they agonisingly missed out on back in the early noughties.
It remains to be seen if Leverkusen can really go all the way — though we are, frankly, running out of reasons to believe they cannot — but Boniface has already established himself as a giant cog in Xabi Alonso's juggernaut, not some mere accessory.
He is the club's top-scorer, their main threat upfront, with 12 goals in the league and 19 in all competitions.
A generous topping of ten assists makes it quite clear just what a productive season Boniface has had for his club. In the league he has, on average, been directly involved in a goal every game.
All that is even more remarkable given the context that this is only Boniface's first campaign in a major European league, and also that he missed the bulk of 2024's first three months with an adductor injury. That fitness issue, of course, accounts for the only blot on the 23-year-old's season: his AFCON no-show.
AFCON no-show takes nothing away from Victor Boniface
Without him, Nigeria did go all the way to the final. With him, however, Jose Peseiro, the Super Eagles’ manager at that tournament who has since vacated the position, believed the team could have done better still.
“I will say that Boniface would have made the difference without injury,” Peseiro said, in the aftermath of Nigeria's failure at the last hurdle.
Even with his absence, then, it could be argued that Boniface made quite an impression. It would be a stretch to say Peseiro's claim strengthens any case Boniface may be building for the African Player of the Year prize, but it certainly does no harm to the latter's chances of becoming the seventh Nigerian victor — and the third Nigerian Victor — in the award's long and illustrious history.
It feels as though Boniface already has one hand on the gong; finish the season, as expected, with a flourish, and the whole thing may well be his.
