Umar Bashiru should win the best midfielder of the season award because he is the best midfielder in Ghana’s elite division and there’s not a lot else to it than that.
Asante Kotoko are a much better team overall than Bashiru’s Karela United FC, as shown by the two clubs’ respective positions on the league table, but Karela’s standout player is of superior individual quality compared to every single midfielder in the Kotoko side.
Karela have a squad loaded with creative and attacking quality, but Bashiru still stands out above the rest. He isn’t just the best midfielder in his team, but the league.
The 24-year-old makes exceptional passes look effortless. Not only can he see things others cannot, he has the quality to make it happen and usually create a chance with a moment of genius. He has unrivalled class and sophistication in his game.
The lanky midfielder has scored 11 goals and registered 3 assists (not a bad return from a midfielder). It is illustrative of how Bashiru has become an orchestrator of Bismark Kobby Mensah’s Karela United FC team.
For so long, he was used as something of a number 10, even asked to drift out wide on occasion, but now he is the valve through which everything flows at the CAM Park.
Playing in a deeper position, Bashiru has become Karela’s defining figure-quite a feat given the quality at the club right now.
Such form has sparked chat of a Player of the Season challenge. Of course, the award is likely to be won by Kotoko’s Cameroonian import Franck Etouga Mbella, but the window of opportunity for someone to gatecrash the party is creeping open. Bashiru could be well-placed to position himself as the next best.
Umar Bashiru is an undeniably beautiful footballer. An unrelenting passing metronome packaged in a lanky guy from Kumasi. He has risen to become the best midfielder in the division, one who draws praise from some of the finest players to ever play in the league, but his humble and quiet demeanour means he mostly stays out of the headlines.
He is never the quickest, the strongest, or the fittest player Karela has but more often than not he emerges as the best player on the pitch. He can spray the ball about or draw players in, and he will always be on hand to score a big goal.
He is one of the finest midfielders Ghana’s elite league has ever produced, and the only shame is that the handlers of the Black Stars and the Black Stars B have yet to give him the recognition he so deserves. At his very best he is the finest midfielder in the country, and at his very worst, he is still probably the best player on the pitch.
Umar Bashiru has had a better individual season than any other midfielder in the league. That is why he deserves to be named Midfielder of the Season ahead of anyone else.
