Nigeria Pitch Awards: Lookman battles Osimhen, Boniface for King of the Pitch Award
Reigning CAF Player of the year, Ademola Lookman will battle his fellow Super Eagles teammates, Victor Osimhen and Victor Boniface for the 2024 King of the Pitch award at the Nigeria Pitch Awards which holds next month.
The trio and many other nominees in 17 other categories were unveiled Thursday in Lagos by organizers of the prestigious award, Lenders.
Lookman was on fire all through 2024 and his goals helped the Super Eagles to get to the final of the Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire and gave his Serie A side, Atalanta their first European title, the Europa League.
The 27-year-old scored 13 times and provided 14 assists in the Serie A in 2024 while in the Europa League, he netted five times and supplied only one assist with his hat-trick in the final of the competition securing victory for his club against Victor Boniface’s previously unbeaten Bayer Leverkusen of Germany.
Lookman was on target once in the Coppa Italia where he also produced one assist; he also scored thrice in the UEFA Champions League in 2024.
He was the most prolific layer for the Super Eagles in 2024, netting six times, with three of the goals scored at the AFCON. He scored the two goals that helped Nigeria overcome Cameroun in the round of 16 and the only goal in the 1-0 defeat of Angola in the quarterfinals.
Overall, he scored 28 times in 2024, four more than Osimhen and 15 more than Boniface did in the course of the same year.
Osimhen netted eight times in the Serie A and once in the UEFA Champions League before he joined Turkish Super Lig side, Galatasaray where he netted another nine goals in the league, three times in the Europa League and three goals for the Super Eagles.
Boniface was also among the goals in 2024. He netted 10 in the Bundesliga, 1 in the Europa League, 1 in the UEFA Champions League and 1 in the DFL-Supercup.
Interestingly, the trio of Lookman, Osimhen and Boniface will also contest for the striker for the year award.
