TORONTO — After he already clinched the Golden Boot Award, Tristan Borges was officially named the top player for the Canadian Premier League's inaugural season on Tuesday.
Borges received the CPL's Player of the Year Award at a lunchtime ceremony in Toronto. The 21-year-old picked up additional hardware as the league's top scorer and won Best U-21 Canadian Player of the Year Award after he capped off a sterling maiden campaign for Forge FC of Hamilton, Ont.
Having scored 13 goals and five assists during the campaign, Borges proved to be a consistent threat for a Forge team that went on to win the CPL championship.
MORE: Forge FC wins inaugural Canadian Premier League title
Tristan Borges (@tristandborges) with the hat trick at today's #CanPLPlayerAwards! 🎩🎩🎩
— Forge FC (@ForgeFCHamilton) November 26, 2019
Congrats, Tristan!#ForgeFC | #CanPL pic.twitter.com/77xLryh5UL
The Toronto native joined Forge after representing Canada at the U-17 and U-20 levels and spending three years in the youth set-up of Dutch club SC Heerenveen. Technically a rookie at the professional level, Borges looked anything but one as he developed quickly into the CPL's most dangerous all-around attacking threat.
"To win these awards after us winning the championship, it's obviously amazing for myself," Borges told reporters on Tuesday. "I give the awards all credit to my teammates and it was a great year from all of us — they put me in great positions to score goals, to play good, but I think this was just a good year. [It was the] first year of me playing officially professional the whole year, and I think this is a good, good spot for me to be in right now."
Borges beat out Forge teammate Kyle Bekker and Cavalry FC attacker Dominque Malonga for the player of the year award, while also topping Pacific FC striker Terran Campbell and York 9's Diyaeddine Abzi for the U-21 honour. Other winners on Tuesday were Cavalry's Tommy Wheeldon Jr. for coach of the year and Marco Carducci for Golden Glove (goalkeeper) and Volkswagen Premier Performer.