While Senegal’s Sadio Mane was accepting his award for being named the 2019 CAF African Player of the Year in Egypt, thousands of kilometres away Riyad Mahrez was playing his part in strengthening Manchester City’s defence of the Carabao Cup.
The Algerian winger was on target as City beat cross-town rivals Manchester United 3-1 at Old Trafford in the first leg of their semi-final on Tuesday night.
It was perhaps an ominous sign of what was to come that neither Mahrez nor Egypt’s Mohamed Salah were present for the awards ceremony at the Albatros Citadel at the Red Sea resort city of Hurghada.
However, that did not stop the Algerian from making his mark on a game that was highly anticipated following United’s 2-1 win at the Etihad in December.
Mahrez doubled City’s lead in the 33rd minute after he ran onto Bernardo Silva’s through pass and rounded United goalkeeper David De Gea to tap the ball into an empty net.
After the match, Mahrez took to Twitter to congratulate Mane and cheekily suggested that he missed the ceremony to gain a head start for the race to win the award this year.
“Congratulations to Sadio for his trophy well deserved and sorry I couldn’t come but I had to start scoring for the 2020 trophy. See you next year inch’Allah,” he wrote.
Mahrez was named African Player of the Year in 2016 after he starred in Leicester City’s stunning campaign to win the Premier League title for the first time.
Mahrez also tweeted his gratitude for winning the African Goal of the Year for his stunning late free-kick in the AFCON semi-final against Nigeria.
