Juventus player, Cristiano Ronaldo, has been announced as the winner of the 2017/18 UEFA Goal of the Season award.
Ironically, it was Ronaldo’s overhead kick for Real Madrid against his current club, Juventus, that got him his latest award.
The announcement was made by the UEFA Champions League on its website.
The football league said that “Ronaldo’s strike, which was applauded on the night by his opposing – and it turned out future – fans, topped the poll with nearly 200,000 of the total 346,915 votes.
He succeeds his new Juve colleague Mario Mandžukić, who won last year for goal against Madrid in the UEFA Champions League final, while Lionel Messi took the award in both 2014/15 and 2015/16.”
The runner-up was Dimitri Payet’s goal in Marseille’s 5-2 UEFA Europa League defeat of RB Leipzig, while third place went to Eva Navarro’s goal for Spain in their Women’s U17 EURO final victory against Germany in Lithuania in May.
This year’s 11 nominees were selected by UEFA’s Technical Observers, with one for each of the main UEFA competitions over the past 12 months. Only goals registered in UEFA club or international fixtures were eligible for consideration.
Lionel Messi won the 2015 and 2016 editions of the award.
In another development, Ronaldo’s erstwhile club, Real Madrid are gunning for the return of their starlet, Mariano Diaz.
Real Madrid are set to bring striker Mariano Diaz back to the club, a year on from selling him to Lyon, after they matched an earlier bid by La Liga rivals Sevilla, the Andalusian side said on Tuesday.
“Real had first refusal and they have told us that they are going to activate their buy-back clause,” Sevilla president Jose Castro told media.
Spanish sports daily Marca reported that Sevilla had made a bid worth a total of 35 million euros ($41 million) including bonuses. However, Real matched that bid to beat their rivals to the signature of the 25-year-old.
Mariano, who was born in Spain but has roots in the Dominican Republic, was sold to Lyon a year ago.
But Real inserted a buy-back clause in the deal as well as guaranteeing themselves 35 percent of any future sell-on. Taking that into account, the actual fee paid by Real will be under 25 million euros.
Castro, who was speaking at a ceremony marking 11 years since Sevilla player Antonio Puerta died during a game, added: “Lyon had an agreement with Real. We negotiated a deal, and then Real had 48 hours in which to exercise their right. They decided to do so. We are still working on other alternatives.”
Mariano came through the Real reserves but made just 14 top-team appearances at the Santiago Bernabeu before being sold to Lyon, for whom he scored 18 times in Ligue 1 last season to help the French side qualify for the Champions League.
But he was left out of Lyon’s starting line-up last weekend and his return to Real comes with the European champions having so far failed to reinforce their attack following the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus.
