It’s that time of year again: FIFA has announced the 10 finalists for the annual Puskás Award, the trophy given to the player, male or female, “judged to have scored the most aesthetically significant, or ‘most beautiful,’ goal of the calendar year.”
This most certainly wasn’t the case last year when Mohamed Salah scooped the award after Liverpool and Egypt supporters spammed the fan vote. The goal Salah scored against Everton back in December of 2018 hadn’t even won the Premier League’s Goal of the Month, so it was an awful joke to see it given the prestigious Puskás Award.
That’s unlikely to happen this year as the structure of the vote has changed. Public voting will be used again, but the public vote will only decide the top three goals instead of the winner. From there, a vote among FIFA Legends will decide the 2019 Puskás-winner.
Here are the 10 nominees in super-speed.
Here are the 10 nominees in slower speed.
2019 Puskas Award Nominees
#1. Matheus Cunha (RB Leipzig)
#2. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (LA Galaxy)
#3. Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
#4. Ajara Nchout (Cameroon)
#5. Fabio Quagliarella (Sampdoria)
#6. Juan Fernando Quintero (River Plate)
#7. Amy Rodriguez (Utah Royals FC)
#8. Billie Simpson (Cliftonville Ladies FC)
#9. Andros Townsend (Crystal Palace)
#10. Daniel Zsori (Debrecen)