'That...was a goal'

For over 50 years now, France Football magazine has awarded the 'Ballon D'Or' or 'Golden Ball' (A in GCSE French) to the best player in Europe over the past year. They invented it to raise awareness and profile to coincide with the inaugural European Cup, and over the years it has grown in status to be arguably the single most credible and coveted award a player can achieve in European football. The list of winners is a who's who of the legendary figures of the European and World game since it was expanded to include players of any nationality who ply their trade in the continent.

FIFA, the grubby, slimy bunch of crooks that they are, have now joined forces with France Football and it is now the FIFA Ballon D'Or - to align with their FifPro award for World Player of the Year and create one overall title.

Incidentally, and please bear with me for this digression, but I've just finished reading the third and final Stieg Larsson 'Millenium' book. This focusses heavily on a covert gang of secret police within the secret police, who operate completely outside the law, without conscience or moral code and will do anything to protect themselves and the sweet deal they have going on. At numerous times whilst reading about them, I had to remind myself that he wasn't referring to Sepp Blatter and his cronies at FIFA. Anyway.

So, now that FIFA have spawned their way on to the prestigious and credible awards panel, they have set about putting their stamp down and reinventing aspects of it. One introduction is the FIFA Puskas trophy, which is awarded to the scorer of the best goal of 2010.

In all fairness, I think this is a great idea and the criteria behind the selections are solid. Clearly with it being FIFA there is bound to be some bias, and political motivation, behind the final ten shortlisted, but they at least talk the talk. The criteria for making the cut are:

aesthetics; the importance of the match; the absence of luck or an opposition mistake as a factor making the goal possible; fair play; and the date

All of this sounds fair and sensible, and again to their credit, the top ten does contain a varying range of goal types. The full list is available to view here:

Jinking dribbles feature heavily, with Robben, Messi, Neymar and in particular Samir Nasri showing their skills. These goals don't quite do it for me though, as in each instance I have to find fault with the defenders. Clearly stopping players of this calibre is not easy, but watch all three of these goals and tell me you don't think there is at least one flappy toe-in-the-cold-water style 'challenge' that should be classed as an opposition mistake.

Token FIFA let's be nice inclusion goes to household name Kumi Yokoyama of Japan U17's (obviously) with again a decent dribble and some nice footwork, but some appalling Korea DPR defending - takes me back to Cape Town seeing that.

The spankers are out in full force, with van Bronckhorst's semi final stunner and Tshabalala's tournament opener from the summer both featuring. Both of those score high in importance points, and I find Tshabalala's goal to be of particular aesthetic appeal - the power that goes into the shot almost seems fuelled by the optimism of an entire country, and the through ball was just perfect.

But, dear readers, cast your minds back to August and you will recall that FIFA needn't have used any of their criteria (particularly not fair play, what does that even mean in this context?!) as there is of course a rock solid formula to figure out the best goal.

It all boils down to the Could I Do It factor, and for me there are three on this list that stand out more than the rest.

Hamit Altintop catches a ball full on the volley at a height almost a foot higher than he would have liked it, direct from the corner. He is 20 yards out and hits it so sweetly and with such a perfect arc that the keeper is never saving it. Stunning strike and technically so difficult that the CIDI Factor is massive.

But that's nothing. Linus Hallenius, unknown to me until today but committed into the game show memory bank for evermore, takes volleying technique to new and outrageous heights with his effort. Chest control, a lob over the defender...so far so good. The finish, however, Jesus H Christ. From a Van Besten-esque angle, he unleashes a thunderbolt which catches the keeper by surprise - this is entirely fair as Hallenius should never have tried this, but he pulled it off in spectacular style. Incredible power and sheer audacity, a phenomenal goal.

Last word on technique however goes to the impudent, innovative and downright brilliant goal from Matt Burrows of Glentoran. Lobbing the keeper in the 90th minute from the edge of the box with a volleyed 360 midair backheel into the top corner? My CIDI generator just exploded.

Take a look at the ten, let me know what you think...or hijack the vote and give Yokoyama the award she truly deserves.

The Puskas shortlist