Moroccan goalkeeper Yassine Bounou was not nominated for the Lev Yashin Award for the best goalkeeper in the world in the 2024 Ballon d’Or awards, presented by the French magazine France Football, despite the veteran goalkeeper’s distinguished levels with Saudi Al-Hilal.
Bono has been defending Al Hilal’s goal since the summer of 2023, when he joined from Sevilla for 21 million euros.
Since moving to Al-Zaeem, the Canadian-born Bono has performed exceptionally well and led the team to the podium thanks to his decisive saves and direct contributions to deciding many matches, leading Al-Hilal to 4 local titles in less than one year.
Analysts expected Yassine Bounou to be on the shortlist for the Lev Yashin Award for the best goalkeeper in the world, given his distinguished performance with Al Hilal, and his maintenance of the same high technical level throughout the season, but his name was not included in the nominations.
The 2024 nominations for the Lev Yashin Award included 10 names, most notably Ukrainian Andriy Lunin from Real Madrid, Italian Gianluigi Donnarumma from Paris Saint-Germain, Argentine Emiliano Martinez from Aston Villa, and Frenchman Mike Maignan from Milan.
Did Yassine Bounou pay the price for his move to Saudi Arabia?
Last year, Yassine Bounou was 13th in the final rankings for the Ballon d’Or, third in the Lev Yashin Award, and was considered by critics to be among the world’s elite goalkeepers, but just a few months later, no one paid any attention to Bounou in this year’s awards.
Bono had already performed strongly with Al Hilal last season, keeping 20 clean sheets out of 42 matches, and with the highest save percentage in Saudi football, as the Moroccan saved 75.3% of the balls shot at his goal.
Yassine Bounou also made an epic return in Saudi Super Cup Last month, he led Al Hilal to a 4-1 penalty shootout win over Al Ahli in the semi-finals, then continued his excellent form and won the cup in the final match against Al Nassr with a score of 4-1.
Watch Yassine Bounou shine in the Saudi Super Cup
France Football’s neglect of Bono may lead us to wonder if the star paid… Morocco national team The price of his move to the Gulf League and competing at lower levels compared to Europe, and perhaps the best evidence is the exclusion of Al-Nasr striker, Cristiano Ronaldo, from the 2024 Ballon d’Or nominations, despite the Portuguese finishing last season as the top scorer in the Roshen League with a record for the largest number of goals scored in a single season in the history of the tournament.
Honor Roll of Lev Yashin Prize Winners
France Football created the Lev Yashin Award for the best goalkeeper in the world starting in 2019, in honor of the legendary Soviet Union goalkeeper, Lev Yashin, who is the only goalkeeper in history to win the Ballon d’Or, which he did in the 1963 edition.
Brazilian Alisson Becker was the first goalkeeper to win the Lev Yashin Award in 2019, and since its appearance on the France Football awards list, no goalkeeper has been able to win the award twice, while the best Arab achievement was for star Yassine Bounou, who came in third in 2023.
Lev Yashin Award Winners
| The year | winner | the second | the third |
| 2019 | Alisson (Liverpool) | Ter Stegen (Barcelona) | Ederson (Man City) |
| 2020 | The award has been cancelled. | The award has been cancelled. | The award has been cancelled. |
| 2021 | Donnarumma (Saint Germain) | Mendy (Chelsea) | Oblak (Atletico) |
| 2022 | Courtois (Real Madrid) | Alisson (Liverpool) | Ederson (Man City) |
| 2023 | Martinez (Aston Villa) | Ederson (Man City) | Bono (Sevilla) |
