FIFA Puskás Award

Miroslav Stoch

Fenerbache footballer Miroslav Stoch was the recipient of the fourth Puskás award at the FIFA Golden Ball Gala, an award which was presented to him by Colombian football legend Carlos Valderrama.

Fenerbache footballer Miroslav Stoch was the recipient of the fourth Puskás award at the FIFA Golden Ball Gala, an award which was presented to him by Colombian football legend Carlos Valderrama. More than five million votes arrived on FIFA's official website and to the surprise of the audience in Congress Centre in Zurich, it was the Slovak player's howitzer against Genclerbirligi in the Turkish league which was chosen to be the most beautiful. The ball found its way to Stoch from a right-wing corner after which he shot right-footed first-time from 22 metres high into the top left corner of the net.

"Firstly, I want  give my gratitude to the fans" the winner said. "It's true that to score that goal I needed to connect with the ball well, but without all the supporting votes I could not have got this Puskás Award. It is a great surprise for me. I would not have believed that the online votes would have chosen me but I am very glad they did. I admit I didn't think I could win. Certainly I would not have believed earlier that they would have referred to me together with two such world-famous players (the other two players in the top 3 of votes garnered were Neymar and Radomel Falcao). I come from a city 25-30 minutes away from Bratislava called Nyitra where ethnic Hungarians also live. I have many Hungarian friends and associates but honestly I really don't know Hungarian so I will just say this; Köszönöm szépen! (Thank you kindly!)".