Omonia heavily represented at football awards ceremony

The 48th annual Best Athletes Awards Ceremony will take place at the Nicosia Municipal Theatre on April, 8.

The awards aim to honour the best footballers on the island and are hosted by the association of Cyprus Sports Journalists (EAK) and are supported by Cytavision.

The ceremony will include awards given to the male and female MVP (most valuable player) of all players currently plying their trade on the island, as well as the combined best eleven from the previous year.

To determine the winner(s) in each category, the awards take into account votes from the Cyprus Sports Journalists Association as well as votes from Cyta members.

The current iteration of the awards will also belatedly present AEK Larnaca forward Ivan Trichkovski with the Golden Boot, since the North Macedonian player was last season’s top scorer when the season was called off due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He had scored an impressive total of 20 goals up to that point.

Omonia’s success on the pitch over the past two seasons is heavily reflected in the awards, with goalkeeper Fabiano Ribeiro de Freitas selected as the previous season’s MVP and the combined best eleven features no less than six players from the Nicosia club. Apollon have the second-most players in the squad with three although one of them, Attila Szalai, has since departed the club for Turkish side Fenerbahce.

The best eleven selected has been placed in a 4-3-3 formation and can be seen in detail below:

Goalkeeper: Fabiano (Omonia)

Defence: Jan Lecjaks (Omonia), Attila Szalai (Apollon, Fenerbahce), Michael Luftner (Omonia), Adam Lang (Omonia)

Midfield: Jordi Gomez (Omonia), Sito Riera (Enosis, AEL Limassol), Eric Bautheac (Omonia)

Attack: Ivan Trichkovski (AEK Larnaca), Ioannis Pittas (Apollon), Nicolas Diguiny (Apollon)

Apollon Ladies’ Krystyna Marie Freda has been selected as the female MVP award recipient due to her exemplary performances over the previous season.

Freda scored a whopping 59 goals during the 2019-2020 and could have ramped up that number even further had the season not been cancelled due to the pandemic. The player spent a part of the season on loan to Glasgow City.

Although Freda was born in the United States she has chosen to represent Cyprus in international football. The 27 year old New Jersey native has one cap for Cyprus so far.

The awards ceremony will be broadcast by Cytavision Sports 1 and can also be viewed online through the CytavisionGo service.