FIFA Puskás Award 2014: the candidates !

The nominations for the 2014 Puskas Award have been out since several weeks ago !
This prize is awarded to the best goal of 2014, or, better, of the period that goes from the 3rd of October 2013 to the 26th of September 2014: this prize was established on the 20th of October 2009 by FIFA on Joseph Blatter‘s demand and was dedicated to Ferenc Puskás, the legendary Budapest Honvéd and Real Madrid striker, and the brightest star of Hungarian National Team (he also collected few caps with Spain), who had passed away three years before.
The previous winners have been: Cristiano Ronaldo, Hamit Altintop, Neymar, Miroslav Stoch and Zlatan Ibrahimović.
The “strange” thing is that the winners have always been famous or very famous footballer, so there are some doubt about the selection of the nominees and the votes; maybe sometimes people choose the name of the footballers instead of the beauty of the goals.

CRITERIA

Anyway there are few criteria to choose the nominees:
- the beauty of the goal (subjective criterion)
- the importance of the match (objective criteria, from the more to the less important: National Team match, continental club competition, Championship)
- the goal doesn’t have to be caused by a accidental episode, i.e. a deflection
- Fair Play: the player mustn’t have behaved unfairly, or be charged of use of doping.

THE CANDIDATES

You can notice, besides the “usual” presence of big names, a strong influence of 2014 FIFA World Cup, and so of the second principle, because 3 goals of 10 have been scored last Summer in Brazil.

Here you are the list of the candidates and a video with their goals:
Fell free to let us kwow your preference in the comments.:

Stephanie Roche (Peamount United)
James Rodríguez (Colombia)
Robin Van Persie (Holland)
Zlatan Ibrahimović (PSG)
Tim Cahill (Australia)
Marco Fabián (Cruz Azul)
Diego Costa (Atlético Madrid)
Pajtim Kasami (Fulham FC)
Camilo Sanvezzo (Vancouver Whitecaps)
Hisato Satō (Sanfrecce Hiroshima)

The list have already been reduced to three names, and the winner will be prized in January 2015, in Zurich, during the gala in which the Ballon d’Or will be awarded as well.
If “pools” are still open, you can vote on FIFA‘s or France Football‘s website.

James Rodríguez (Colombia)
Stephanie Roche (Peamount United)
Robin Van Persie (Paesi Bassi)