Olivier Giroud’s remarkable New Year’s Day ‘scorpion kick’ goal against Crystal Palace is still in the running to win the coveted FIFA Puskas award – awarded to the best strike of 2017 – after surviving a first-round vote.
The Frenchman’s effort is now into a second round of voting alongside goals by Venezuela’s Deyna Castellanos and South African Oscarine Masuluke.
Castellanos scored a winner from the halfway line for Venezuela’s under-17 side at the Women’s World Cup just seconds after her side had conceded an equaliser in stoppage time.
Masuluke, a goalkeeper, also won plaudits for a stoppage-time effort, this time for an overhead kick for Baroka against Orlando Pirates.
Every fan has a new vote in this second round, with the total of both votes added together to decide the winner. Voting will conclude on Monday 23 October, the day of The Best FIFA Football Awards ceremony in London.
You can vote for Giroud’s strike, here.
I love Giroud’s scorpion kick and congrats to him for being nominated, but let’s be honest, Mandzukic’s overhead kick in the Champions League final was just absolutely fucking amazing and a more worthy contender.
Whatever, get voting for Giroud now!
It’s subjective, and I couldn’t disagree more. Fernando Torres scored an almost identical one to Mandzukic last year. A great goal to be sure, but Giroud’s was a one-off masterpiece. It’s also helped that he had the tidy backheel followed by a lung busting run into the box.
No ozil, no problem.
On the same list, Masuluke’s bicycle kick is much more impressive than Mandzukic’s overhead kick… and he is a freakin goalkeeper to boot.
Voted for Giroud though, because COYG
That Castellanos goal is something else. The timing (having just conceded an equaliser in stoppage time) and importance (world cup game), not to mention the sheer bloody audacity of it. Astonishing. Giroud improvised bit of genius has serious competition.
http://www.fifa.com/the-best-fifa-football-awards/news/y=2017/m=9/news=castellanos-miracle-goal-2909536.html
If her goal gets an award, there should also be another award for Sloppy Goalkeeper of the Year.
Yes, the timing of the strike and all that, but really the GK should be pushing that over the bar or at least getting some hands to it.
Why don’t they make women’s goals smaller?
Because the ball’s the same size?
same could be said about mandzukic goal
Goal enabled by bad goal keeping. Giroud’s goal was flawless except for the assist. The opposition team simply couldn’t have done anything to prevent it. The start was good, the build up was good and the finish was ASTONISHING. This was a goal both borne out of terrific team player AND great individual brilliance. In other words, the winner.
If you like Castellanos so much then vote for her in the best FIFA women’s player of the year award.
Puskas belongs to our HFB. It stands out because of team play and individual skill.
It also stands out as it was scored in the top flight of football. That doesn’t apply for either of the other contenders.
FIFA website: “The criteria are fairly simple: an aesthetically beautiful goal, awarded without distinction of championship, gender or nationality, scored without the result of luck or a mistake and in support of Fair Play.” – So it doesn’t matter what league you’re in or your gender, etc. The reason Castellanos shouldn’t win is because I don’t think her goal is as good as the other two in the shortlist. It was more of lazy goalkeeping or a switched off goalkeeper. That’s my opinion, but frankly I think Camargo’s shot from half court was better that hers, because he hit it… Read more »
We’ve seen plenty of goals like hers whereas Giroud’s is a one off
One might say Giroud goal is lucky but, i don’t think it’s pure luck because he was involved in the build up and then bust his gut from the halfway line to the box. He even pointed to Sanchez where he wanted the ball but, when the cross came in a little late he did the only thing he could have done in that situation and back footed to give us an unforgettable scorpion goal. So, 99% pure intent and 1% luck. This is a guy who scored a wonder goal for France against Sweden in the same year and… Read more »
Nonsense. Sloppy goal keeping
Looks like shit goal keeping to me and the level of football isn’t the same, it’s not even that hard to do like an over head kick. Not in the same class as Giroud’s.
Look,I’m an Arsenal fan and all that,and I love Giroud,but goals like his appear once every decade,while I don’t think any goalkeeper will replicate that Masuluke goal ever again.That goal simply deserves an award of some kind.
A BuLi goalkeeper did that last year, but didn’t get the Puskas nomination
Link to Bundesliga goalie scoring bicycle kick?
In a relegation battle scoring against one of the top teams in that league scoring via a bicycle kick, just not the same
Still voting for girroud though
Both the other goals were one-off hacks that came off. Keeping and defending was poor against both.
Giroud’s was an end to end team goal, that he was involved with in the middle, which we’ll never (probably) see again.
Get voting for him.
The other goals will still be in the top three…
“but goals like his appear once every decade”
How is that an argument against it?
Don’t be bothered with ppl downvoating your comment. You never said that you would not vote for Giroud but their braincells ain’t working properly
Kinda feel he deserves the award based on celebration! Anyone willing to chip in to by Alan Pardew some purple spendex?
True, hands down that was an astonishing goal, I mean an overhead kick by a GK that’s amazing!
But it’s like when you’re running for the Presidency, no matter what, you gotta vote for yourself
Don’t forget to vote twice! Once from your laptop, and another time from your cell phone
Vote Giroud Twice
Mate if you cared about Arsenal, clearly you’d go out and purchase several new devices to enable you to vote for Giroud 7-8 times
I voted 3 times already from my PC
Chrome, Firefox and I.E. haha
Delete cookies after you vote and then you can vote as many times as you want
Or just use an incognito browser window or clear your cookies. They are only checking for locally stored files to determine if you’ve voted.
It’s worth noting that you can vote using multiple browsers as well. I’ve managed six votes: twice at work, twice on the phone and twice at home. Let’s get our man Ollie this tasty piece of recognition!
Don’t overdo it though. You don’t want to make it look like a democratic election in Africa.
What is that supposed to mean? You should be ashamed of yourself and your ilk for that nonsense of a comment. I am African and I take offence to your implied derogatory comment. Shame on those who liked it too.
This in no way takes from the absolute beauty Giroud scored. I have voted for him already, I think it is the best of the lot and arguably the best Arsenal goal in a decade. Coyg.
I have voted…Dont ask me for who.But he was the Premier League ‘hotest’ player in 2015.
I won’t even need to spam the vote. Giroud’s goal is simply the best 😀
All 3 were my choices and no wonder they are in final but obviously Giroud gets my vote.
Considering Arsenal FC has the largest and most active online support, it would be a huge slap on the face for all Arsenal fans if Giroud doesn’t win this. Since the FIFA website didn’t even ask me to log in to cast my vote, I was able to cast multiple votes for Giroud in the last round from different IPs.
Disappointing no mention on the arsenal website – they should be pushing for votes also!
They should literally get someone in the PR team to sit down everyday and vote a hundred times per day. Pay him, obviously…
They tweeted after Blogs ran this story I think.
Consider the level of opposition, Giroud is head and shoulders over the others.
Plus he starts the move from inside our half and catches up with Alexis (indeed gets a bit too far in front), to put in the cross.
World class.
Giroud’s is the only crafted goal in the final 3 – one was terrible keeping in a youth team game, the other a goalmouth scramble as a result of a bad punch out.
Also, fuck off Match of the Day/the Premier League voters who thought Emre Can & Andy Carrol’s volleys were better than Oli’s goal. Don’t see either of those hit & hopes even on the long list…
Özil’s goal against Ludogoretz didn’t make such a fuss in this competition in 2016 while it was all cleverness, preciseness and talent. But well…
Does someone have the capacity to create a program which clears a browsers cookies every time you press vote?
I remember the buzz around Boateng’s goal last season and it holds up. Mandzukic’s was also astonishing, esp. considering the stage. Too bad what followed in that match. Of the three finalists, only OG’s has it all.
1) Excellent team play in the build up (all 1- and 2-touch in the end-to-end move),
2) astounding skill in the attempt, and
3) an aesthetically pleasing strike (clean hit with power and placement to beat the keeper, plus an extra style point for going in off the crossbar or post)
4) that beats decent defending/goalkeeping (no mistakes or lucky breaks).
Fernando Torres scored identical one last year and he don’t won…