Zambia’s Barbra Banda is a strong favorite to win the 2024 CAF Women’s Player of the Year Award, which will be held tonight in Marrakech.
Football House believes Barbra Banda will win the prize, with FAZ President Andrew Kamanga stating on Monday morning, “We are confident that she has done enough to win the award tonight.”
Banda had a memorable 2024 after joining the Orlando Pride, who spent the second-highest transfer fee in women’s football history to sign her from Shanghai Shengli.
She has been the talismanic figure who has driven the Pride from underdogs to champions, with 13 goals and six assists leading them to first place in the regular season and their first NWSL Shield. She was also named BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year in 2024, and she is the first African to make the 2024 FIFPRO Best Eleven.
At the Paris 2024 Olympics, she scored her third major event hat trick against Australia in a 6-5 group stage loss, reaffirming her status among the world’s best strikers.
Before that, Banda became the first player in Olympic history to score hat-tricks in consecutive games against the Republic of China and the Netherlands in 2021, despite her team going winless and exiting the group stage.
Following that historic hat-trick in Paris, Banda became the first player in women’s football history to score three hat-tricks at an Olympic Games, putting her in strong contention for this year’s CAF award.
Her current Olympic goal tally is nine, five short of Cristiane’s record (14).
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