Elected best player in D1 Arkéma in 2021 and 2023, while being the best player in the French women’s team for several years, Kadidiatou Diani will not be rewarded individually this season, as she left PSG for OL last summer.
Three months before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (from July 25 to August 10 for the women’s tournament), Hervé Renard, the coach of the French women’s team, may be worried about the state of form of his offensive players. Only Marie-Antoinette Katoto finished the season well by piling up goals with PSG. In Lyon, Eugenie Le Sommer had knee surgery and will try to get back into shape for the Olympics and Delphine Cascarino is slowly recovering from her serious knee injury (partial rupture of a cruciate ligament).
Still at OL, it is Kadidiatou Diani who is the most disappointing French international, both for selection and for club. The winger is clearly the best player of the Blues since the 2019 World Cup and changed dimension last summer by leaving PSG to join Olympique Lyonnais. In this team of a completely different standard, Diani had a good season without becoming the star of the team (four goals in the Women’s D1, as many in the Coupe de France, eight in the Champions League).
Chawinga, the new star of PSG
The sanction has therefore fallen: the Best player in D1 Arkéma in title (but also in 2021) is not present among the three nominees of the year. The distinction will be given to Grace Geyoro, the leader of PSG (and the Bleues), Tabitha Chawinga, the new crack of the Rouge et Bleu (the Malawian has 27 goals and 13 assists!), and Lindsey Horan, the American captain of Olympique Lyonnais. Moreover, the prodigy from Haiti Melchie Dumornay, 20 years old, is certainly the second best player of Fenottes.
The D1 Arkéma Trophies ceremony will be organized next Monday in Paris (9 p.m., live on Canal+ Sport), one month before the UNFP Trophies (which award equivalent awards). Christiane Endler, the Lyon goalkeeper, could obtain her fourth title as best goalkeeper in the women’s D1, her coach Sonia Bompastor should do the double, while Inès Benyahia (Le Havre) Louna Ribadeira (Paris FC) and Thiniba Samoura (PSG) are nominated for the reveal of the season. Le Sommer is named for a magnificent goal scored with a sombrero-resumption from the left.
