Nyasa Big Bullets players Babatunde Adepoju and Lanjesi Nkhoma have been nominated for the 2021 Airtel Top 8 Player of the Tournament award.
Football Association of Malawi (FAM) on Thursday announced nominees for the award three months after The People’s Team won the cup after defeating Silver Strikers at Kamuzu Stadium.
The Bullets striking duo will face competition from Silver Strikers’ forward Stain Davie and midfielder Zebron Kalima.
FAM’s competitions and communications director, Gomezgani Zakazaka, said the four were nominated by the Competitions Technical Study group after analyzing the competition’s statistics.
Babatunde, who joined The People’s Team in summer from Mighty Wanderers, finished as Airtel Top 8 top scorer after bagging eight goals in three matches, winning Bullets their first Airtel Top 8 cup, scoring four goals against his former team in the semi-finals.
The Nigerian forward did not to feature in the final against Silver Strikers due to suspension.
His eight goal mark broke, by far, the records set by previous golden boot winners in the first three years of the competition, who never went past three goals.
Nkhoma, who joined Kalisto Pasuwa’s side from Nyasa Big Bullets Reserves last season, was also a surprise package in the competition with his brilliant performance in all the matches he played.
During the Blantyre derby against Wanderers, the youngster assisted Babatunde in the third goal and in the final match he tormented Silver’s defence before scoring the equalizing goal, which helped the Bullets to come from behind to beat the Lilongwe side on penalties and was named Man of the Match.
A selected group of coaches under the National Coaches Association and some sports journalists will decide the winner of the award, to be announced at a ceremony hosted by the sponsors Airtel at a date to be confirmed by FAM.
