Surprise at The Best’s Puskas award for the best goal of the year: a footballer with an amputated leg among the three finalists

THE Fifa announced this Friday that it will be the three goals that will fight for the Puskas Awardwhich world football’s governing body will award to the best converted goal during 2022. Among the three finalists there is one converted by Marcin Oleksy, a Polish player who plays in amputee football. Among the candidates for the trophy, however, one scored by an Argentinian was excluded, Francisco González Metilliwho had been included among the 11 pre-candidates, but did not pass the last filter.

The vote of internet users on the website of the parent company of ecumenical football and the opinion of a group of experts have established that one of the candidates for the award (which will be presented on February 27) is Marcin Oleksy, who was awarded calf amputation accident in 2010, after suffering an accident while working on a road project. The Pole plays for amputee football club Warta Poznan and scored a scissors goal in his club’s match against Stal Rzeszow on November 6 last year.

Another of the candidates is the Brazilian richarison, for one of the two goals (also scissor kicks) he scored against Serbia on November 24, in the Brazilian team’s first match at the World Cup in Qatar. That goal was later chosen as the best of the World Cup. One striking fact is that if Richarlison wins the prize, it will be the third consecutive year that an English player from Tottenham has won the prize: Erik Lamela (now at Sevilla) got it in 2021 and South Korean Son Heung-min did it in 2020.

The third candidate is French Dimitri Payet for the goal scored on 7 April in the 2-1 victory of his team, Olympique de Marseille (then coached by Jorge Sampaoli), against the Greek PAOK Thessaloniki for the first leg of one of the keys to the quarter-finals of the League of conferences.

Tandil’s man, on the other hand, will not be able to aspire to the trophy González Metilliwho had been placed in the initial group of 11 candidates for the goal scored on August 1 at Gigante de Arroyito in Central Córdoba’s 3-0 win over Rosario Central for the 11th round of the Professional League.

In this way the midfielder who now plays for Argentinos Juniors will not be able to make one of his dreams come true, at least for now. “I hope to win my goal so I can meet (Lionel) Messi”he said when he learned he was among the finalists.