Wellington Phoenix’s Kosta Barbarouses and Brisbane Roar’s Laini Freier have been voted by their peers as the winners of the Austraffic PFA Player of the Month for December.
The Wellington attacker has been on fire for the ‘Nix so far this season, scoring six goals to lead the Golden Boot charts alongside Player of the Month recipient for November in Western Sydney Wanderers’ Nicolas Milanovic.
Barbarouses fired home three of those goals in December alone, which included a fantastic long-range strike against the Newcastle Jets from inside the centre-circle, bringing up his 99th career goal in the A-League Men.
Meanwhile, Freier has had one of the great first months of football in the history of the A-League Women.
The Brisbane Roar winger played her first professional game at the beginning of the month, coming as a substitute against Wellington on December 8, before making her first start a fortnight later on the road at Newcastle.
Freier went on to score a hat-trick and tally an assist in a memorable starting debut against the Jets, before backing it up with yet another hat-trick away to Western United eight days later, along with an assist for her sister, Sharn, who was also nominated for the Player of the Month in December.
Her back-to-back hat-tricks made her the first player in the history of the competition to achieve such a feat, and after scoring against Canberra United in the first game of January, Freier sits on top of the Golden Boot race.
The duo will receive a specially designed ball from our partners at Park SCC as a result of winning the Player of the Month, and will choose to donate 10 balls to one of three charities – Football Empowerment, KitAid Australia and Football United.
2024-25 POTM winners
A-League Men
October/November: Nicolas Milanovic (WSW)
December: Kosta Barbarouses (WEL)
A-League Women
November: Isabel Gomez (CCM)
December: Laini Freier (BRI)
