May, 2012 Awards

With the end of the European seasons, our attention in terms of monthly awards shifts to Ethiopia and North America. Stanton Lewis of the Houston Comets was the only member of the primary teams to earn Player of the Week honors in the Americas, while Bereket Addisu and Samuel Degefe (twice) were named to the Team of the Week in Ethiopia. Degefe was third in the Player of the Month voting, behind Ashenafi Girma and Harsi Mehdin of Harrar Beer while Mehdin finished behind his teammate, eighteen year old midfielder Ashenafi Abebe for the Young Player of the Month. Elsewhere in Ethiopia:

• Three players from Saint George were listed as the Addis Ababa City Cup Best Player: Atakilti Mengesha was trailed by Felix Sunzu and Fitsum Kebede. An Ex-Saint George player, Andualem Negussie, led the competition in scoring.
• The Addis Ababa City Cup Dream Team was dominated by Saint George (Adugna Deyas, Pierre Delorme, Andrew Sinkala, Mengesha, and Sunzu) and Ethiopian Coffee (Ashenafi Ademe, Merare Anbesse, Yonas Desta, Meselech Beshinto, and Negussie), with only Fincha’a Sugar’s Birhamu Worku joining them.
• The Ethiopian Cities Championship—the parallel to the City Cup for teams outside of the capitol—was dominated again by Bahir Dar Kenema, with Yared Wendimagegne being voted the Best Player and Solomon Kebede taking home the Golden Boot. Other than two defenders from Adama City (Tesfaye Araya and Derigi Solomon), the entire Dream Team—starters and substitutes—came from Bahir Dar and Awassa.

And, in North America where only the top two divisions have truly swung into form,

• América’s Pepe Treviño beat out Houston’s Piotr Nowak for the North American Select League Manager of the Month. In that same league, young striker Ezequiel Orozco was named the Player of the Month while DC United’s midfielder Chase Carroll was the Young Player of the Month.
• Correcaminos UAT’s defender Francisco Pérez edged out both Houston’s Graham McSweeney and Real Salt Lake’s Faramir to be the North American Champions League Young Player of the Month. In a typically confusing choice, nineteen year old striker Nick Johnson of Colorado was the Player of the Month, despite not being listed in the youth award. Brooklyn’s Bob Lilley was the Manager of the Month and the Comets had a second honoree as Adán Ramírez won the Goal of the Month.

May Awards

June 1, 2010

The three active teams all received individual accolades in May. First Marco Zentil and Isma were both named to the Italian Serie C2/A Team of the Week in May. Additionally, Nicola Dal Bosco had the second best goal of the month in the league.

In England, Team of the Week honors were granted to José Boswinga (twice), Alex, and Nicolas Anelka. And, in Ethiopia, Saint George were back to dominating the league honors, as Liban Elmi, Eshetu Mohammed, Samson Mulugeta (twice), Mohammed Abera, Bereket Addisu, and Fitsum Kebede (twice) were all named to the Team of the Week during the month.

Note that none of these were listed in the larger monthly awards: in Ethiopia, the Player of the Month hardware was swept by Awassa City, with Behailu Assefa winning the award, closely followed by Birhamu Worku and Yared Tizazu. Another Awassa player, Teshager Alemu, won the Youngster of the Month. Awassa is expected to meet Saint George in the championship game in June: we’ll see if these players can carry their club to a shock upset.

England handed out its end of season hardware, with Wayne Rooney picking up the Footballer of the Year, Steven Gerrard being hailed as the Players’ Player of the Year, and Everton’s James Vaughn being declared the Young Player of the Year. Rooney and Gerrard were joined by Tim Howard (GK, Everton), Yury Zhirkov (D, Chelsea), Johan Djourou (D, Arsenal), Nemanja Vidic (D, Manchester United), Micah Richards (D, Manchester City), Andrey Arshavin (M, Arsenal), Wilson Palacios (M, Tottenham), Ji-Sung Park (M, Manchester United), and Emmanuel Adebayor (F, Manchester City) in the Select XI of the Premier Division.