FIFA Puskás Award

Puskás, Top scorer of the 20th century.

The FIFA Puskás Award is an award established on 20 October 2009 by FIFA at the behest of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) President Sepp Blatter in order to award the player, male or female, judged to have scored the most aesthetically significant and "most beautiful" goal of the year. Ferenc Puskás's name is in commemoration of the newly-created FIFA Goal of the Year award.

The award is in honor of Ferenc Puskás, the captain of Hungary's Mighty Magyar team of the 1950s and central member of the highly successful Real Madrid side of the 1960s. Puskás is widely considered by many to be the most powerful and prolific forward European football produced in first division football, and scored a once world record of 84 goals in 85 internationals. He is the top scorer of the 20th century with 512 goals in 528 matches.

"It is important to preserve the memory of those footballing greats who have left their mark on our history. Ferenc Puskás was not only a player with immense talent who won many honours, but also a remarkable man. FIFA is therefore delighted to pay tribute to him by dedicating this award to his memory," said Blatter at the inauguration of the award in Budapest.

The time-frame for the first award was July 2008 to July 2009. The annual award was presented for the first time during the 2009 FIFA World Player of the Year Gala on 21 December in Switzerland, with the Portuguese player, Cristiano Ronaldo, being the first prize winner.

Criteria

• It should be a beautiful goal (subjective — the spread of goals should include long-range shots, team goals, overhead kicks, individual plays, etc.).
• The importance of the match should be taken into account (objective — limited to "A" international teams, confederation championships and national top-division club matches: the more important the goal, the better).
• The goal should not be the result of luck, mistakes or a deflection by a teammate or the other team.
• The goal should support fair play, i.e. the player should not have behaved badly in the game or have been charged with doping, for example.

Winners

Year	Rank	Player	Nationality	Team	Opponent	Score	Competition	Vote percentage
2009 Details
	1st	Cristiano Ronaldo	Portugal	Manchester United FC	FC Porto	0–1	2008–09 UEFA Champions League quarter-final	17.68%
	2nd	Andrés Iniesta	Spain	Barcelona	Chelsea	1–1	2008–09 UEFA Champions League semi-final	15.64%
	3rd	Grafite	Brazil	Wolfsburg	Bayern Munich	5–1	2008–09 Fußball-Bundesliga	13.39%
	4th	Eliran Atar	Israel	Bnei Yehuda	Maccabi Netanya	1–1	2008–09 Israeli Premier League	13.36%
	5th	Fernando Torres	Spain	Liverpool	Blackburn Rovers	4–0	2008–09 Premier League	9.44%
	6th	Nilmar	Brazil	Internacional	Corinthians	1–0	2009 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A	8.71%
	7th	Michael Essien	Ghana	Chelsea	Barcelona	1–1	2008–09 UEFA Champions League semi-final	7.85%
	8th	Luis Ángel Landín	Mexico	Cruz Azul	Morelia	1–1	Primera División de México Clausura 2009	7.30%
	9th	Emmanuel Adebayor	Togo	Arsenal	Villarreal	1–1	2008–09 UEFA Champions League quarter-final	4.04%
	10th	Katlego Mphela	South Africa	South Africa	Spain	3–2	2009 FIFA Confederations Cup Third place match	2.59%
2010 Details
	1st	Hamit Altıntop	Turkey	Turkey	Kazakhstan	0–2	UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying Group A	40.55%
	2nd	Linus Hallenius	Sweden	Hammarby IF	Syrianska FC	2–0	2010 Superettan	13.23%
	3rd	Giovanni van Bronckhorst	Netherlands	Netherlands	Uruguay	1–0	2010 FIFA World Cup semi-final	10.61%
	Unranked	Matty Burrows	Northern Ireland	Glentoran	Portadown	1–0	2010–11 IFA Premiership	NA
		Lionel Messi	Argentina	Barcelona	Valencia	3–0	2009–10 La Liga
		Samir Nasri	France	Arsenal	FC Porto	5–0	2009–10 UEFA Champions League knockout phase
		Neymar	Brazil	Santos	Santo André	2–1	2010 Campeonato Paulista
		Arjen Robben	Netherlands	Bayern Munich	Schalke 04	0–1	2009–10 DFB-Pokal Semifinals
		Siphiwe Tshabalala	South Africa	South Africa	Mexico	1–0	2010 FIFA World Cup Group stage
		Kumi Yokoyama	Japan	Japan	North Korea	1–2	2010 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup Semifinals
2011 Details
	1st	Neymar	Brazil	Santos	Flamengo	4–5	2011 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A	NA
	NA	Lionel Messi	Argentina	Barcelona	Arsenal	3–1	2010–11 UEFA Champions League knockout phase
		Wayne Rooney	England	Manchester United	Manchester City	2–1	2010–11 Premier League
		Benjamin De Ceulaer	Belgium	Lokeren	Club Brugge	1–2	2011–12 Belgian Pro League
		Giovani dos Santos	Mexico	Mexico	United States	2–4	2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup Final
		Julio Gómez	Mexico	Mexico	Germany	2–3	2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup Semifinals
		Zlatan Ibrahimović	Sweden	Milan	Lecce	1–1	2010–11 Serie A
		Lisandro López	Argentina	Arsenal	Olimpo	2–2	2011 Torneo Apertura
		Heather O'Reilly	United States	United States	Colombia	3–0	2011 FIFA Women's World Cup group stage
		Dejan Stanković	Serbia	Internazionale	Schalke 04	2–5	2010–11 UEFA Champions League Quarter-final

External links

• Puskas Award at Fifa.com (official website)
• [1] (2011 Nominees List)