Wouter Vrancken's team has rumbled like a steam train through the first half of the season. Their awe-inspiring form in the league has not gone unrewarded at the Golden Shoe gala, either as our Genkies returned to Limburg with no less than three awards.
Young player of the year
Bilal El Khannous impressed across Belgium’s pitches last year. His play even earned him a call-up for the World Cup in Qatar. There, he played for the Moroccan national team in the third-place match. During the gala of the Golden Shoe awards, our youngster was more than rightly proclaimed to be the league’s young player of the year.
Goal of the year
On October 23 of last year, Bryan Heynen shocked De Bosuil. After great build-up play by Paul Onuachu and Mike Trésor, he took a smart ball from Mike and finished with a half bicycle kick, bringing the ball down over his shoulder and firing it into the back of the net. In this, the only award where the supporters themselves have their say, our captain won by a wide margin and his goal will go down in history as the most beautiful scored in 2022.
Golden Shoe
Together with Simon Mignolet and Casper Nielsen, Mike Trésor was allowed to take a seat at the finalists’ table. In the end, our brilliant king of assists was awarded with third place thanks to his dazzling first half of the season.
Coach of the Year
The architect of all that wonderful football is our coach Wouter Vrancken. In recent years, Vrancken had done good work at KV Mechelen. The fact that he was able to continue those good results from last season at the highest level in the Cegeka Arena makes him more than rightly the coach of the year.
Best Belgian Playing Abroad
To top it all off, Kevin De Bruyne was allowed to add to his trophy cabinet with the prize of best Belgian playing abroad. Along with Thibault Courtois, Leandro Trossard and Cyriel Dessers, King Kev finished ahead of three other ex-Genkies. As a Genk family, we couldn't be more proud of our youth products. Keep up the good work!
Now that the awards are behind us, we can refocus on football; another important week is ahead. Come on Genkies!
