•Nigerian to make Ballon d’Or nomination
By Rasaq Oboirien
Despite his four Rookie of the Month Awards, facts have emerged about how Super Eagles ace, Victor Boniface missed out in the race to be named Bundesliga Player of the Season, reports Daily SunSports.
Boniface is enjoying his most prolific campaign in the Bundesliga this season, having been Leverkusen top scorer with 21 goals and 10 assists from 33 games.
However, the Nigerian lost the top German football prize to his Bayer Leverkusen teammate, Florian Wirtz for the role he played in Leverkusen’s invincible Bundesliga season.
In 32 games this season, Wirtz scored 11 goals and 11 assists and his form over the season also saw him win the Bundesliga Player of the Month award on three occasions.
Similar to the Rookie of the Month Award, to be eligible for the award, players had to have won the Player of the Month award. This means he beat Stuttgart duo Sehrou Guirassy and Deniz Undav as well as teammates, Alejandro Grimaldo and Boniface to the award.
Wirtz’s win means that Leverkusen scooped up both the Bundesliga Player of the Season as well as Rookie of the Season after Boniface scooped the award last week.
Meanwhile, Boniface could make the nomination for 2024 Ballon d’Or nomination for his fantastic form this season.
Recall Victor Osimhen was ranked number 8 in the 2023 Ballon d’Or award, which was held in Paris, France.
However, Leverkusen will not stop there as on Wednesday it has the chance to win the Europa League when it faces Atalanta in Dublin. Next Saturday the team then travels to Berlin to face Kaiserslautern in the DFB-Pokal, setting up a potential unbeaten treble.
