PLAYERS OF THE YEAR: Almost 70,000 fans had their say and elected Barca’s Casper Mortensen and CSM’s Cristina Neagu as the EHF Players of the Year
Mortensen and Neagu voted EHF Players of the Year
67,900 fans voted for the EHF Players of the Year, electing Danish Casper Mortensen and Romanian Cristina Neagu as the stand-out stars of 2018. The fan vote mainly took place on Facebook, but a poll was introduced on Twitter and Instagram when it became clear the race was particularly tight in the men’s category.
Neagu was clearly the fan favourite to be named the female EHF Player of the Year for the second year running. She topped the EHF Champions League scorer list for the 2017/18 season, scoring 110 goals on the path to CSM’s third-place finish for the season. To end 2018, Neagu became the all-time top scorer at Women’s EHF EURO events when she broke the record at the tournament in France.
Mortensen was the top scorer in the tough domestic championship, the German Bundesliga, in 2017/18. He scored 230 goals in the season, before transferring to Spanish Champions League powerhouse Barca Lassa over the summer. With Barca, he has already won the 2018 IHF Super Globe and contributed 56 goals – the highest count in the team – toward their leading position in VELUX EHF Champions League Group A.
“2018 was a great year for me, which I will never forget. After three years in the Bundesliga, I went to amazing Barcelona. From the beginning of this season we have worked hard and played good in the EHF Champions League,” said Mortensen after learning he was named Player of the Year. "I will use this as a motivation to come back even stronger and quicker.”
The EHF Players of the Year were determined entirely by fan vote.
TEXT:
Courtney Gahan