10 goals that could have won the Puskas Award 2018

That of 2018 is without any doubt the controversial edition of the Puskas Award, the prize that is awarded to the football player who scored the most beautiful goal (in this case, between 3rd of July 2017 and 15th of July 2018) and was assigned yesterday during a big ceremony held in London, during which many other FIFA awards were released, including the one of 'the Best', won by Luka Modric. The reason for the major disappointment? The competition was won by Mohamed Salah and especially all by his goal in a Merseyside derby against Everton, but the decision did not find unanimous opinions in the international scene, despite the award was chosen by the votes of fans around the world (the 38% of a total package of 500,000 votes). Salah's winning was so surprising that even his Liverpool teammate, James Milner, has failed to exempt himself from publishing an ironic tweet 'against' him.

Obviously 2017/2018 season was full of wonderful goals, and we wanted to offer you a hit of those who in our opinion could have peacefully beat the one of Salah, which evidently has been able to take advantage of a huge help from of his loyal and local supporters. And believe it, we stopped at 10 but we could have put many more in our special ranking. Anyway, good job Momo!

 

Jermaine Defoe (Bournemouth) vs Crystal Palace

Think about this paradox: the goal of Salah dates back to December 2017 and had not even been awarded as a 'goal of the month' in the Premier League, surpassed by this beauty scored by the timeless English striker in a Bournemouth-Crystal Palace.

 

Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) vs Juventus

There's really need to motivate why we chose this goal? We are talking about a technical gesture that can not be described in words and that will naturally be remembered for decades. It's probably the manifesto of modern football, perhaps the best goal scored by CR7 in his career: not to see him rewarded looks really strange. 

 

Gareth Bale (Real Madrid) vs Liverpool

The same goes for the previous goal: how is it possible that such a work of art could not receive the Puskas Award? Every time we look at him, we appreciate him more and more, wondering how the hell the Welsh did to coordinate in that way. The answer is only one: it's Gareth Bale.

 

Edin Dzeko (Roma) vs Chelsea

Ask your Romanist friend how much he screamed after this goal and then try to imagine the size of the Bosnian striker: here, this goal is an absolute coordination masterpiece and not just because he managed to silence Stamford Bridge. Ps: applause also to Federico Fazio for the great pass.

 

Lucas Torreira (Sampdoria) vs Chievo Verona

We have seen dozens of different but equally amazing free kicks: that of Sebastian Giovinco with the shirt of Toronto Fc and that of Fredy Guarin with Shanghai Shenua we appreciated a lot, but that of Uruguayan midfielder of Sampdoria (not really a specialist) won the our internal poll and we are convinced that it deserved at least a nomination.

 

Benjamin Pavard (France) vs Argentina

The goal of the young French was elected best goal of the recent World Cup: beautiful also because it was scored by a central defender adapted as a right back, which had never given such technical gestures. Even if we modestly included it among the seven potential cracks of Russia 2018.

 

Georgian de Arrascaeta (Cruzeiro) vs America MG

Among the coolest acrobatics that we have seen recently, there is no doubt this pearl of another Uruguayan midfielder, who rightly was included among the candidates for the Puskas Award thanks to this wonderful goal achieved in a match of Brasilerao with the shirt of Cruzeiro, last February.

 

Riley McGree (Newcastle Jets) vs Melbourne City

The beauty of the Puskas Award is that we learn about goals scored on the other side of the world that we probably would never have been able to see. One of these is that of the Australian McGree who (could miss a heel goal in our top 10?) able of scoring with an unpredictable scorpion shot in a play-off match of the Aussie championship.

 

Suso (Milan) vs Udinese

Another category that we had to cover is that of the left-handed shoots from the outside the area: Asensio against Las Palmas, Douglas Costa against Benevento, Malcom against Dijon but especially Suso against Udinese. Even this time only one choose was very hard but we wanted to reward the Rossonero for the unpredictability of his goal.

 

Ignacio Scocco (River Plate) vs Olimpo

This ranking of the top goals of the season is already over and there is only one remaining place: do not start talking about the low quality of Argentine defenders if we wanted to put the special slalom of the Argentinean Scocco, a goal that has been compared (without a real reason) to the goals that marked his compatriot Maradona.