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Enyeama wins Player of the Year award Friday, May 22, 2009 HAPOEL Tel Aviv goalkeeper, Vincent Enyeama was on Wednesday, voted the Israeli League Player of the Year. advertisement Enyeama becomes only third foreign player, and only the fifth goalkeeper to win the prestigious annual award, organised since 1965 by Israeli newspaper Maariv. The award is voted for by all the players in the league and the Nigerian received an overwhelming 87 out of 232 votes, beating former West Ham forward, Yaniv Katan of champions-in-waiting Maccabi Haifa to a distant second place with 35 votes and Bnei Yehuda's Eliran Atar to third on 32 votes. Enyeama told Kick Off Nigeria.com that he was honoured to have won the award. "It’s a great feeling for me to win this. It's very important for my career and I would like to thank my team mates because I couldn’t have got this without them. "I would also like to thank everyone who voted for me. It is never easy to do well in a different league and a different country and the League here is very difficult." Since the inception of the award, only two other foreign players had won it; Forwards Dovani Roso of Croatia and Brazilian Gustavo Boccoli. Enyeama has been a huge part of Hapoel's title challenge this season, scoring three goals in addition to a long and consistent string of top drawer monster saves game, after game to keep the Tel Aviv club's challenge against giants, Maccabi Haifa. The former Enyimba goalkeeper is no stranger to awards. In his first season in Israel, he was voted the best goalkeeper. The following season, he placed second in and only missed out last season.