PUSKAS AWARD: TEVEZ&#39;S WONDER GOAL

Habeeb Akinfegbe

The 2015 FIFA Ballon d'Or Gala will be the sixth year for FIFA's awards for the top football players and coaches of the year. The awards will be given out in Zürich on 11 January 2016.

The FIFA Puskás Award is one of the items on the schedule and Tevez is one of the nominees. Presented annually, the FIFA Puskás Award recognises the best goal of the year and who better than you, the users of FIFA.com and francefootball.fr to vote for the three finalists that will battle it out for the coveted accolade at the upcoming FIFA Ballon d’Or Gala?

You have until 30 November to cast your vote for one of the ten most outstanding strikes of the last year. The 2015 shortlist features a very special goal scored by Argentinian forward Carlos Tevez for Juventus, a mazy solo effort that immediately brought to mind the dazzling dribbling skills of his illustrious compatriots Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi. The world’s media wasted little time in dubbing it a “Maradona-like” goal, with reactions to it coming almost as fast as the speed with which the fleet-footed Apache blazed past his hapless adversaries to score it.

Tevez’s stunning strike came in a league match against Parma on 9 November 2014, a game Juventus started as league leaders and in which they raced into a 3-0 half-time lead.

With five minutes gone in the second half, Tevez set about making it four, muscling an opponent off the ball inside his own half and then scampering across the halfway line as the visiting defence began to backpedal. The first defender to cross his path was left floundering by a silky shimmy as the speeding Tevez veered to his right. He had reached the D when a second defender came to intercept, the Argentinian cheekily evading his attentions by slipping the ball past him on one side and then motoring round on the other to collect it, by which time he had only keeper Antonio Mirante left to beat. Opting for placement instead of power, El Apache then took everyone by surprise by instinctively rolling the ball inside near post, leaving the powerless Mirante rooted to the spot.

Explaining the ability that allowed him to score such a superb goal, the inimitable Tevez said: “I used to play on the potreros (the humble dirt pitches where many an Argentinian player learns their trade), where I’d rob the ball and play more, but these days I play football more and they’re two different things. I’ve come on a lot but there’s still a bit of the potrero in me. Sometimes it comes to the fore, as it did in the goal against Parma. That was a potrero goal.

All ten wonder goals are currently available for you to watch at FIFA.com and FIFA’s YouTube channel.

Last year James Rodriguez picked up the Puskas Award for his stunning World Cup volley but who will triumph this time around? A shortlist of three will be announced on November 30 before the winner is announced next January.

Other nominations are

David Ball
Fleetwood Town v Preston North End, League One, 29 March 2015

Gonzalo Castro
Real Sociedad v Deportivo de la Coruna, La Liga,12 April 2015

Alessandro Florenzi
AS Roma v FC Barcelona, Champions League, 16 September 2015

Wendell Lira
Atletico-GO v Goianesia, Brazilian Goiano, 11 March 2015

Carli Lloyd
USA v Japan, Fifa Women’s World Cup, 5 July 2015

Lionel Messi
Athletic Bilbao v FC Barcelona, Copa del Rey, 30 May 2015

Philippe Mexes
AC Milan v Inter Milan, Pre-Season Friendly, 25 July 2015

Marcel Ndjeng
Paderborn v Bolton Wanderers, Pre-Season Friendly, 13 July 2015

Esteban Ramírez
Herediano v Deportivo Saprissa, Costa Rican Primera Division Invierno, 2 November 2014