FIFA have opened up their prestigious Puskás Award to a fan vote, which means that Olivier Giroud is pretty much guaranteed to win.
Giroud has made the 10-goal shortlist for this year’s FIFA Puskás Award with his stunning goal against Crystal Palace on New Year’s Day.
The scorpion kick was the first of two Arsenal goals scored on the afternoon, with Alex Iwobi netting the second later on.
A panel of goalscoring experts have chosen their final 10 from thousands of goals from around the globe for the annual award so Giroud making this list is a pretty big deal.
Arsenal fans love an online poll or anywhere they can cast their vote, whether they actually believe the Gunner they’re voting for deserves it or not, and it p**ses other fans off wonderfully.
Back in 2015, Jack Wilshere won Goal of the Season on the BBC’s Match of the Day with a pretty standard-looking goal against West Brom during the final clash of the season.
The same year, we also voted for Gabriel as best signing of the transfer window on Sky Sports News and Yaya Sanogo as the player who would prove to be the best signing.
You get the idea.
Therefore, now that FIFA have opened the vote up to the World Wide Web, I think we can predict who will win the Puskás Award.
The Puskás Award was established in October 2009 to award the most aesthetically pleasing goal of the year in honor of former Real Madrid striker, Ferenc Puskás.
The voting will close on 9 October.
The other players/goals on the short list are as follows:
- Kevin-Prince Boateng (Ghana/Las Palmas/23.10.2016)
- Alejandro Camargo (Argentina/Universidad de Conception/04.12.2016)
- Deyna Castellanos (Venezuela/Venezuela U-17 Women national team/24.10.2016)
- Moussa Dembele (France/Celtic FC/05.02.2017)
- Aviles Hurtado (Colombia/Tijuana Xolos/01.04.2017)
- Mario Mandzukic (Croatia/Juventus/03.06.2017)
- Oscarine Masuluke (South Africa/Baroka FC/30.11.2016)
- Nemanja Matic (Serbia/Chelsea/23.04.2017)
- Jordi Mboula (Spain/ FC Barcelona Youth/22.02.2017)