Percy Tau nominated for Belgium Proximus League Player of the Year award
Percy Tau’s sensational first season in European football has been recognised with his nomination for the Proximus League Player of the Year award.
This prestigious honour goes to the individual judged to have been the best player in Belgium’s second tier. Needless to say, the Lion of Judah is in the running along with his Union Saint-Gilloise teammate Faïz Selemani and KV Mechelen’s Nikola Storm, who sounds like he should be a character in the Avengers rather than a professional footballer.
Tau has scored 13 goals and notched 12 assists in his 33 games for Union this season. Despite having taken a keen interest in how the Belgian second tier works since Tony Bloom purchased Union a year ago, I’m still none the wiser as to how the promotion system works.
It goes something along the lines of the season being split into two different parts, then where you finish in an overall league table decided by your number of points, wins and goal-average determines if you play a side from the top tier in a promotion play off or a side from the third tier in a relegation play off. There is probably a sword fight, a set of riddles and a hopscotch competition thrown in for good measure.
Whatever the method, Union have failed to win promotion to the top division but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t enjoyed a stellar campaign. They knocked giants Anderlecht out of the Belgian Cup with a 3-0 away success in a Brussels Derby. To put that in some perspective, it would be rather like Brentford going to Stamford Bridge and eliminating Chelsea from the FA Cup with a three goal hammering.
Tau impressed in that game at Anderlecht’s wonderfully named Constant Vanden Stock Stadium. He set up the opening goal for Youssouf Niakate, sprinting past a defender on the left before rolling the ball through to Niakate for the first of what would turn out to be a hat-trick.
Union made it all the way to the semi’s, where they eventually fell 2-1 at home in the two-legged affair to their second tier rivals Mechelen. The first leg had finished 0-0.
Should the Lion of Judah win the award, it will be the second consecutive season in which his individual brilliance has been recognised. He was named the PSL Footballer of the Year for 2017-18 during his final campaign in South Africa with Mamelodi Sundowns.
There is no reason to suspect he won’t make it a third in 2019-20 either should he finally be allowed to play in the Premier League after being denied a work permit last summer.
South Africa need to climb into the top 50 of the world rankings for him to be eligible to play in Britain next season but with a player as talented as the Lion of Judah leading their line in this summer’s African Cup of Nations, Bafana Banafa will surely win the tournament and move up the rankings as a result.
His imminent arrival in England and the 40 goals which will take the Albion into the Champions League that we’ve been promised by his followers as part of the Where’s Percy Tau? campaign over on Facebook should put him firmly in the running for the Ballon d’Or of 2020.
No date has been set for when the winner of the Proximus League award will be revealed but don’t you worry, we’ll be keeping an eye on goings on in Belgium day and night in order to bring you the news of the winner as soon as it’s announced.
Praise be the Lion of Judah. In the name of Percy Tau, amen!
