Shalulile vies for Cosafa top prize 

Brave Warriors captain Peter Shalulile is shortlisted for the coveted 2023 Cosafa Men’s Player of the Year Award.

The Mamelodi Sundowns sharpshooter is up against Zambian Lameck Banda, who stars for Lecce in the Italian Serie A, and South African Percy Tau of Al Ahly in Egypt.

Shalulile finished joint top-scorer in the South African League in the 2022/23 season, and helped Sundowns to an unprecedented sixth championship in a row.

He has since added one more this term.

Shalulile also helped the club win the inaugural African Football League and led Namibia to qualification for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, scoring four times in a tough qualification pool that included Cameroon.

He scored 25 goals in the 2023 calendar year for Sundowns, and another three for Namibia.

Percy Tau lifted the 2022/23 CAF Champions League with Al Ahly and helped his Egyptian side to the domestic league title as well in another trophy-laden year.

He has become an important scorer and creator of goals for Ahly and a fan favourite in an environment in which it is sometimes difficult for foreign players to shine.

He also helped South Africa to 2023 Afcon qualification and scored against Urawa Reds as Ahly took third place at the Fifa Club World Cup.

Lameck Banda was the first-ever Zambian to feature in a Serie A match when he turned out for Lecce at the start of the 2022/23 season, and was influential for his club for the remainder of the campaign.

He also helped his country to qualify for the 2023 Afcon and is destined for much bigger things in the near future.

He is clearly growing in stature and was more and more influential as 2023 went on.

“It was, as expected, a tough choice to arrive at three, but the trio are deserving of their place having starred for club and country, and in two of the instances won some major silverware,” Cosafa said in a statement yesterday.