Giroud scorpion-kick goal shortlisted for FIFA award
Olivier Giroud’s scorpion kick strike for Arsenal against Crystal Palace last season was shortlisted for FIFA’s goal of the year award on Monday, alongside efforts from Venezuelan teenager Deyna Castellanos and goalkeeper Oscarine Masuluke.
Giroud scored with an improvised volley in the Premier League match on Jan. 1, producing an acrobatic flick with his left heel to convert Alexis Sanchez’s cross into the net off the crossbar while tumbling forward.
Arsenal won the match 2-0 and Giroud, who admitted afterwards that he had a bit of luck with his connection, said it was the best goal he had ever scored.
The 31-year-old is the seventh Frenchman to be nominated for the award but the first to make the final shortlist of three, world soccer’s governing body said on its website.
Castellanos is the second Venezuelan woman in successive years to make the final three and was nominated for her strike
LONDON:
from the halfway line against Cameroon at the U-17 Women’s World Cup in Jordan last year.
SYRIA FANS TROLL AUSSIES
Syrian football fans trolled Australia’s official Facebook supporters page ahead of Tuesday’s World Cup play-off in Sydney, flooding it with thousands of messages.
“We will beat you in Sydney and then we will have sometime to eat kangaroo barbecue before we go back SYRIA,” one commentator wrote, while another added: “Are you walking in Australia or jumping like kangaroos?”
Tim Cahill scored deep into extra time to take Australia a big step closer to next year’s World Cup and end war-torn Syria’s fairytale run in the play-offs on Tuesday. Cahill cancelled out Omar al-Soma’s opener in the first half before he leapt to head Australia’s precious second goal in the 109th minute for a 2-1 win in the second leg.
SYDNEY: