The FIFA Puskás Award is awarded by FIFA to the most brilliant goal of the season. The award named after the goal scorer of the century, Hungarian Ferenc Puskás (512 goals in 528 career matches), was established by FIFA in 2009. Cristiano Ronaldo was the winner of the inaugural award followed next year by Hamit Altintop. This year’s shortlist of the top 10 goals has been made.

Please watch all goals and head to http://www.fifa.com/ballondor/puskasaward/index.html to vote for your favourite goal.

The final list of the top 3 goals will be announced on 5th December (2 days from now!). You will then have until the FIFA Ballon d’Or Gala 2011 on 9th January to vote for the winner.

Criteria:
•It should be a beautiful goal (subjective — the spread of goals should include long-range shots, team goals, overhead kicks, individual plays, etc.).
•The importance of the match should be taken into account (objective — limited to "A" international teams, confederation championships and national top-division club matches: the more important the goal, the better).
•The goal should not be the result of luck, mistakes or a deflection by a teammate or the other team.
•The goal should support fair play, i.e. the player should not have behaved badly in the game or have been charged with doping, for example.

1)Benjamin De Ceulaer
Benjamin with a great two touch finish for his team Lokeren against Club Brugge.

2)Giovani Dos Santos
Santos seals the win for Mexico in the Gold Cup Final against USA with a world class goal. Collector’s stuff really! Final score 4-2.

3)Julio Enrique Gómez
An injured Julio performs an overhead kick and scores to make the score 3-2 to put Mexico through to the final of the U17 World Cup! Germany left stunned.

4)Zlatan Ibrahimović
Great instinctive finish from Ibra to put AC Milan ahead at the beginning of the second half in the away game at Lecce. Final score: 1-1

5)Lisandro López
Perfectly timed overhead kick by Lisandro to give Arsenal (Argentinian Arsenal) a 1-0 lead over Olimpo! Seriously difficult considering the pace of the ball!

6)Lionel Messi
Iniesta gifted the ball by former Arsenal captain Fabregas who passes the ball to Messi. 3 magical seconds later the ball is in the back of the net! Game finishes 3-1 to Barca.

7)Neymar
Individual skill from Neymar to give Santos a 3-0 advantage over Flamengo. Though Ronaldinho and company stage a comeback to win the match 4-5.

8)Heather O’Reilly
Heather with a belter of a goal (that literally made the crowd go WHOOAA) to give USA the lead in the 12th minute in the FIFA Women’s World Cup fixture against Columbia. USA went on to win the match 3-0 to seal a place in the Quarterfinals.

9)Wayne Rooney
You could not have possibly missed this! The English folk have no doubt this will be the winner. Rooney with his moment of sheer genius to give United a 2-1 win in the Premier League Manchester Derby at Old Trafford…..

10)Dejan Stanković
Stanković scoring from almost the half-way line with the longest range volley you may ever see to give Inter Milan the lead against Schalke 24 seconds into the game! Although they ended up losing 2-5 in this Champions League fixture.

definitely Rooney's...

@koldimere I disagree. I'd vote for Dos Santos, that goal was amazing!

Rooney's goal is excellent compared to the others. I like Stankovic's goal too.

Definetly Stancovic, i allways get chills when i see that goal!

Considering all the criteria FIFA has listed, I say the top 3 should be:
1) Rooney
2) Giovani Dos Santos and
3) Julio Enrique Gómez
purely because their goals were crucial (Rooney's and Julio's goals won the matches for their teams and Santos's sealed the win). I think Stankovic and Neymar won't make it as their goals did not matter in the context of the match. Anyways we'll find out the top 3 tomorrow!

And the top 3 goals are:
Messi
Neymar and
Rooney
Really surprised that Santos's goal didn't make it. But anyways atleast Rooney's goal stood up to its expectations.
Please head over to
http://www.fifa.com/ballondor/puskasaward/index.html
and vote for one of these 3 goals.

Rooney of course

In all fairness now Rooney should win this. Blatter said that it should be 'the most beautiful goal' and if Santos's didn't make it, it should be Rooney hands down. But I guess the people of the world worship Messi so much that no one else is visible to them!

Rooney will win this

Alas! Neymar has won it. And now British media are forming conspiracy theories as to why Rooney wasn't given the award citing corrupt FIFA didn't want to give the award to a British player.