Three nominees for the Best Legionnaire Award in Asia

The nominees for the 2026 Asian Football Legionnaire Award have been announced by AFC.

According to "Verzeh Se", the Asian Football Confederation announced the names of the final candidates for the 2026 annual awards today, Friday, October 24. In the category of the best Asian player working outside of Asia, three players from Japan and South Korea will compete for this title. The remarkable point of this list is the complete absence of Iranian players who play in leagues outside the Asian continent.

According to the official announcement of the AFC, Ayase Ueda, the striker of the Japanese national team, Hwang In-beum, the midfielder of the South Korean national team, and Lee Kang-in, another South Korean football star, are the three finalists for this award. In this way, Japan will have one representative and South Korea will have two representatives in this section.

Ayase Ueda, who has played in Feyenoord in Holland and Lille in France this season, is the only representative of Japanese football in this competition. This attacker, by participating in European football and the Japanese national team, was able to be among the three final candidates.

Hwang Inbeom is another player on this list. The Korean midfielder, whose names of Feyenoord in the Netherlands and Porto in Portugal can be seen in his club records for this period, will be one of the options to receive the award due to his performance in European football and the South Korean national team.

The third candidate is Lee Kang-in. A player who had a very good season at Paris Saint-Germain in France and was listed in the AFC list and last year also won the title of the best Asian player working outside of Asia. In this way, he has the opportunity to win this award for the second year in a row.

But what is important for Iranian football is the absence of players like Mehdi Tarimi and other Iranian legionnaires among the final candidates. While Iranian football still has players outside the Asian continent, none of them have been able to be in the final list of this section and the competition will be completely between the representatives of the two East Asian powers.

The important thing is that the award for the best Asian player working outside of Asia is different from the title of the best Asian player of the year. According to the criteria published by the AFC, to select the best Asian Legionnaire, the league level and club competitions, individual performance, game statistics, honors and the player's representation in the national team are considered. Therefore, this selection is not based solely on the number of goals or assists.

Of course, Iranian football is represented in the main section of the best male player of the year in Asia, and Alireza Biranvand, the goalkeeper of Tractor, has been nominated for this award, along with Salem Al-Dosri and Firas Al-Barikan. However, in the special section of the Legionnaires, Iranian football does not have a share of the three final candidates. The winner of this award will be announced at the annual ceremony of the Asian Football Confederation, which will be held on Thursday, November 19, 2026 (November 28, 1405) in Bangkok, Thailand.