Riyad Mahrez has officially won the PFA Player of the Year, the award voted on by the players of the Premier League for the best player of the year.
Mahrez’s rise has been anything but obvious. He was bought for £400,000 and brought to a team that just barely escaped relegation last year because of an ironically convincing end-of-season winning streak. This season, Leicester just kept on winning and Mahrez was arguably the most important factor in that.
With 18 goals and 10 assists in 36 games, including massive goals against Manchester City and more recently Swansea, Crystal Palace, and Watford, Mahrez has been Leicester’s main man. Jamie Vardy may have gotten all of the attention for his rags to riches story and midseason scoring streak, but it was Mahrez who was, and still is, the player who constantly creates an offensive threat.
In a charming interview given at the PFA award ceremony, Mahrez admitted to pride he felt at being the first African player to win the award.
In becoming the first African to win the PFA Player of the Year award, Mahrez out did his childhood hero and Premier League legend Didier Drogba.
You can see the disbelief followed by pride as Mahrez realizes what he has accomplished.
Fair play to him though, he handles the entire interview with class and modesty.
“Not the best but the first,” he says. “So I am very happy.”
We don’t imagine we could have put it any better ourselves.
In honor of Mahrez’s accomplishment, let’s end things with what got us here in the first place, Mahrez’s skills:
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