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Asian Cup Best Player List: Golden Ball Winners in AFC's Showpiece Event
Joel Reyes
updated at January 13, 2024 at 3:45 PM
In this article:
- Only a select few have won the Best Player award at the AFC Asian Cup
- Qatar's Almoez Ali won the prestigious prize in the last edition of the Asian Cup
- Four Japanese stars have won the AFC Asian Cup Best Player award
The 2023 AFC Asian Cup is finally here.
Each Asian Cup concludes with a selection of top prizes given to the players who have distinguished themselves during the competition.
The trophy that Asian players want the most is the tournament's Best Player award.
Sports Brief looks at the complete list of Golden Ball winners in AFC Asian Cup history.
Source: Getty Images
AFC Asian Cup Best Player Winners
Ebrahim Ashtiani was the first to win the Best Player award in the AFC Asian Cup, taking home the top prize in 1972.
Two more Iranian players won the Best Player award: Ali Parvin in 1976 and Khodadad Azizi in 1996.
Japan holds the record for most Best Player winners in the Asian Cup with four. Kazuyoshi Miura (1992), Hiroshi Nanami (2000), Shunsuke Nakamura (2004), and Keisuke Honda (2011) lifted the award after leading their country to the Asian Cup title, per AFC.
Year | Best Player | Country |
1972 | Ebrahim Ashtiani | Iran |
1976 | Ali Parvin | Iran |
1984 | Jia Xiuquan | China |
1988 | Kim Joo-sung | South Korea |
1992 | Kazuyoshi Miura | Japan |
1996 | Khodadad Azizi | Iran |
2000 | Hiroshi Nanami | Japan |
2004 | Shunsuke Nakamura | Japan |
2007 | Younis Mahmoud | Iraq |
2011 | Keisuke Honda | Japan |
2015 | Massimo Luongo | Australia |
2019 | Almoez Ali | Qatar |
Almoez Ali became the first Qatari player to win the Golden Ball after leading his country to the 2019 Asian Cup title.
He broke the record for most goals scored in a single tournament, finding the back of the net nine times in Qatar's championship run, per ESPN. He scored the opening goal in Qatar's win over Japan in the final.
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Asian Cup Golden Boot winners
Sports Brief also previously reported on the Asian Cup Golden Boot winners.
Names on the list include Iran's Ali Daei and South Korea's Koo Ja-cheol.
Ali was the most recent winner of the Golden Boot in 2019, scoring seven of his nine goals in the group stage.
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