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FC Nantes of France winger, Moses Simon has been listed among the best 11 players of the group stage matches at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon, megasportsarena.com reports.
Sterling performances in two starting roles and one of the bench that helped Nigeria achieve the only 100% mark of the ongoing competition have coagulated to fetch Simon the esteemed honour.
The former SK Trencin of Slovakia, KAA Gent of Belgium and Levante of Spain dazzler is the only Nigerian listed in the roll call provided by highly-revered football statistics website, Whoscored.com, after the group stage of AFCON 2021.
Players from only nine countries are named in the best 11 roster so far at the continental soccer showpiece in Cameroon, where Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire top the log with two players apiece, while Sierra Leone, Sudan, Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco, Cameroon and Tunisia have one each.
Simon is deployed as an attacking midfielder in a 4-4-2 formation, with Morocco’s Sofiane Boufal from Angers of France) as well as Cote d’Ivoire’s Nicolas Pepe from Arsenal of England and Ibrahim Sangaré from PSV Eindhoven of Netherlands completing the midfield four.
Kamara of Sierra Leone starts in goal, behind a defence line of Bouna Sarr (Senegal), Pape Abou Cisse (Senegal), Mustafa Karshoum (Sudan) and Nouhou Tolo (Cameroon), while the attackers in a twin combination upfront are Vincent Aboubakar (Cameroon) and Wahbi Khazri (Tunisia).
The Eagles’ best player so far at AFCON 2021, with a goal and one assist in three games, was involved creatively in the build up to Nigeria’s second in the 2-0 victory over Guinea Bissau on Wednesday, after he teed up stand-in captain, William Troost-Ekong to poke home.
Simon’s citation among the best 11 noted in part: “He was the top rated player against Sudan and Guinea-Bissau, has been successful in 79.6 percent of his passes, averaged 2.3 shots per game and five dribbles per game.”
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