The 28-years-old Australian born Macedonian is the winner of the Fresh FM Player of the Year Award for season 2008/09. An award which is given to best beast Adelaide United played. Sasa Ognenovski was voted with maximum points what makes the win even more valuable.
Ognenovski won the award with maximum 30 points, 10 more than the second placed Australian national team player Scott Jamieson, who is defender as well.
The Fresh FM award, that is sponsored by the Payneham Road Chemplus, is found very popular in Australia. It is voted by the Fresh FM special commentators who vote according to the 3-2-1 system. Each commentator gives 3 points to the one who he thinks was the best, 2 points to the second best and 1 to the third best. Ognenovski got 3 points from all the ten commentators.
Besides the award, Payneham Road Chemplus owner, Lewis Pounentis, presented Ognenovski with a cheque for $2,000.
“It’s a privilege to win this award and I would like to thank Lewis and Payneham Road Chemplus for sponsoring the award and also Fresh FM for making this award possible,” Ognenovski said for the Adelaide United official web page, continuing about his transfer to Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma: “I’ve really enjoyed my time here in Adelaide and made a lot of good friends. Adelaide United is a great club and I will take a lot of fond memories away with me to Korea.”
Fresh FM Player of the Year 2008/09 top 5:
1. Sasa Ognenovski (30 points)
2. Scott Jamieson (20 points)
3. Paul Reid (16 points)
4. Eugene Galeković (13 points)
5. Fabian Barbiero (10 points)
Ognenovski played 35 games for Adelaide in the past season and scored 3 goals. 23 in the A-League, 1 in the Australian Cup, 2 in the FIFA Club World Cup and 9 in the AFC Champions League. He is now player of the South Korean club Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma. Due to administrative problems, he didn’t got in time the Macedonian passport and didn’t played on the Friendly against Moldova, but it is expected that he will be in the squad for the World Cup 2010 qualifier against Holland away.