Villarreal of Spain winger, Samuel Chukwueze has found another lift-up added to his fast-rising career, as The Yellow Submarine’s youngster has been named among nominees for this year’s Ballon d’Or award for under-21 players across the whole wide world, megasportsarena.com reports.
The Chile 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup revelation, who has transfer interest from Real Madrid and Barcelona of Spain, is nominated among nine others by the organizers, France Football Magazine for the World Best U21 Player, who will go home with a trophy for the Kopa Award, following his breakthrough season with Villarreal in La Liga and his surge into the Super Eagles’ mainframe.
The fast-rising left-footed lad, though, will face stiff opposition in the race for who takes over the gong from PSG whiz-kid, Kylian Mbappe, as other nominees for this year’s prize include Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund/England), João Félix (Atletico Madrid/Portugal), Matthijs de Ligt (Juventus/Holland) and Matteo Guendouzi (Arsenal/France).
Also in the running for the award are Kai Havertz (Bayer Leverkusen/Germany), Andriy Lunin (Real Madrid/Real Valladolid/Ukraine), Moise Kean (Juventus/Everton/Italy) as well as Kang-in Lee (Valencia/South Korea), but they are all generally regarded as outsiders in the race.
The Kopa Trophy, which was first instituted last year, is named after former French footballer, Raymond Kopa and designed for the best under-21 talents of the season in review, for which Chukuweze, who has already scored two goals in eight league appearances for Villarreal this season, become the first Nigerian to be nominated for the award.
The 20-year-old winger, who first caught the eye last season with a series of fantastic performances and nine goals in all competitions in his breakthrough season with The Yellow Submarine, was named Villarreal’s best young player of the past campaign.
He was unanimously voted Villarreal Revelation of The Year by the club’s fans, following his breathtaking form, which received rave reviews last season with his dribbling abilities and pace with which he troubled Barcelona and Real Madrid in his club’s key matches
An English journalist Sid Lowe who covers La Liga told Pulse Sports: “Chukwueze is going to be a great player. He already is a good player, I think he’s going to be a great player.”
