Ittihad midfielder Mohammed Noor, who recently failed to make the Saudi national team, has been short-listed for this year's AFC Player of the Year award. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) recently announced the first 15-member shortlist for the award. The winner will be named on Nov. 23 once the 2014 FIFA World Cup Asian qualifiers, the Olympic qualifiers, the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup matches come to an end. The Dutch coach of the Saudi team, Frank Rijkaard, has earlier said that the 33-year-old midfielder is too old to apply his coaching strategies. South Korea and Iran have three players each in the list this year, while Asian champion Japan has two. Iraq, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), China, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria all have a player each in the 15-member list. From Iran, defender Hadi Aghili, Farhad Majidi and Ghasem Hadadifar are among the contenders, while Koreans Koo Ja-cheol, Ha Tae-goon and Yeom Ki-hun have made the list. Japanese Keisuke Honda and Takashi Inui's performance in the AFC Asian Cup earlier this year put them in contention for the prestigious honor. Former Asian Player of the Year Server Djeparov (Uzbekistan) is once again in the fight alongside Ismail Matar (UAE), Younus Mahmoud (Iraq), Deng Zhouxiang (China), Firas Al-Khatib (Syria) and Hasan Abdel Fattah (Jordan). __
