Picture Credit: Twitter/UEFA
UEFA have announced the winner of the best goal of the 2020-21 season of the Champions League on Friday. After nearly 1.3 million votes by fans across the globe on some of the brilliant strikes in the tournament, it was Porto's Mehdi Taremi who emerged as the winner for his outrageous overhead kick against the eventual champions Chelsea in the second leg of the quarter-finals.
Taremi beats Messi and Giroud to win the award
The nominees for the best goal of the season included some out-of-the-world goals. While Lionel Messi's brilliant long-range screamer against PSG ended at second position, the incredible acrobatic goal from Oliver Giroud against Atletico Madrid secured the third spot in the standings. Neymar's incredible effort against Istanbul Basaksehir and Karim Benzema's goal against Chelsea completed the list of top five goals of the season. Here are the final standings after the final voting:
1. Mehdi Taremi (Porto) vs Chelsea
2. Lionel Messi (Barcelona) vs PSG
3. Olivier Giroud (Chelsea) vs Atletico Madrid
4. Neymar (PSG) vs Istanbul Basaksehir
5. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid) vs Chelsea
6. Luka Modric (Real Madrid) vs Shakhtar
7. Alassane Plea (Monchengladbach) vs Shakhtar
8. Kylian Mbappe (PSG) vs Barcelona
9. Angelino (Ajax) vs Istanbul Basaksehir
10. Manor Solomon (Shakhtar) vs Real Madrid
Watch all the goals here:
While Taremi has bagged the goal of the season in UCL, it will be interesting to see if he will be able to win the Puskas award (best goal of the season across all competitions) as well later this year. He will be competing against some extremely outrageous goals scored around the globe. Let's wait for the results of that but until then he can certainly enjoy winning this award as defeating the likes of Messi, Benzema, Modric etc. is nothing short of a major accomplishment.