Liverpool’s Mo Salah won the Puskas award for best goal scored. Liverpool fans around the world would tell you, they would have wanted that goal to be scored against their arch derby rivals, and that’s exactly what happened. Salah scored the goal against Everton in his first Merseyside derby. The Egypt international’s solo effort found the net in the first half Merseyside derby match in December 2017 of the Premier League to put his team, Liverpool Fc 1-0 ahead.
Though he lost out to Luka Modric for the best male player of the year, Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah did not walk away empty-handed from The Best FIFA Football Awards 2018 gala here, beating the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo’s goal in the finals of the Champions League for Real Madrid against his now current team Juventus.
Ronaldo worked his magic against Juventus, the club he went on to join over the summer, while Bale’s goal came in the Champions League final against Liverpool but Salah’s stunner prevailed over a pair of spectacular bicycle-kick goals for Real Madrid by Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.
WATCH Ronaldo’s goal:
WATCH Bale’s goal:
Fans may argue that the magnitude of the occasion such as the Champions League finals and the outrageous acrobatic nature of Ronaldo’s goal should have given him the edge over Salah, but the votes suggested otherwise.
football fans around the world are taking it out on the internet, questioning this decision as to how did Salah’s goal manage to get higher votes than Ronaldo and Bale’s goals. although there is nothing much FIFA board alone can do about the decision because the winner of the FIFA Award is picked after the votes are split between national coaches of FIFA Member Associations, their team captains, a select group of media from those countries, and fans.
Here are the list of winners from the event:
FIFA best men’s player: Luka Modric
FIFA best women’s player: Marta
Best Goal ‘Puskas’ award: Liverpool and Egypt international Mohamed Salah won the Puskas Goal of the Year award for his goal against derby rival Everton last season at Anfield.
Best men’s Coach: Men’s Coach award was won by World Cup winner Didier Deschamps, he was presented the award by compatriot and former Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger.
Best Women’s coach: Reynald Pedros, coach of Lyonnais Féminin – who won the French league and the Women’s Champions League last season – picks up the award.
Best Goalkeeper award: The best goalkeeper was by Belgian international and Chelsea goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois.
Best fans: Peru fans
FIFA Fair play award: Presented by Pierluigi Collina and Paolo Maldini, the award was won by Lennart Thy. Lennart missed a game for VVV-Venlo against PSV Eindhoven to donate stem cells to try and help a Leukaemia patient.
FIFA World XI: De Gea, Dani Alves, Raphael Varane, Sergio Ramos, Marcelo, Luka Modric, Kante, Eden Hazard, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo has won the Best Men’s Award for the last three years but looks like he and Lionel Messi are absent for tonight’s grand award ceremony.