On Sunday evening, the ceremony of awarding UNFP cups to the best players of the 2022-2023 season took place. Some choices don’t seem to be unanimous.
Photo credits: IconSport
Not surprisingly, the trophy for the best season was won by Didier Deschamps Kylian Mbappé, the author of 28 goals and 5 assists in Ligue 1. The Paris Saint-Germain striker competed with his teammate Lionel Messi, Seko Fofana, Loïs Openda and Jonathan Dawid for this trophy . Franck Haise was named coach of the season and Brice Samba the best goalkeeper. Two choices that pose no challenge in the context of the season achieved by RC Lens.
The decision to designate Nuno Mendes as “Best Hope” has raised some questions in the meantime. Indeed, the Portuguese only played 18 games as a starter, and even if those performances were generally interesting, he wasn’t really above the pack with his 2 goals and 6 assists in the league. On his social networks, Rémy Cabella also expressed his misunderstanding. The Lille player would think it would be more logical for Elye Wahi to receive the award.
“You’ve got Elye Wahi having an amazing season”
“So most Ligue 1 players chose Nuno Mendes as the best candidate… of course he is a phenomenon and has incredible potentialit recognizes the LOSC helper anyway. But ’18 games as a starter’ this season in Ligue 1 while you have Elye Wahi having an amazing season with 17 goals“, he commented in particular on the attacking midfielder.
It’s hard to actually prove that Cabella was wrong about this. In addition to the two players, Rayan Cherki, Bradley Barcola and Eliesse Ben Seghir were also nominated in this category. Aside from the shared record, there didn’t seem to be a big gap between Mendes and the other players on the roster.
