Vote Stepahie Roche for Puskas goal of the year

Despite fearing for my health by posting a soccer thread on our beloved 606 rugby site, this is an exceptional event. A young semi-professional Irish female soccer player called Stephanie Roche is in the final three for the FIFA goal of the year - along with that Dutch twerp Van Persie and James (call me Hamez) Rodriguez of Colombia. Hamez unlike Van Persie seems a very nice chap and if our Steph wasn't in the frame I'd be voting him. Link below tells you how to vote and you can also see Steph's wonder goal.

http://www.fifa.com/ballon-dor/puskas-award/index.html

So come on even if you hate soccer and all its preening poncy showponies, let's rally around our Steph and as we say over here vote early and often. The Colombians are deluging the FIFA site with votes we can only assume are for Hamez, as are us Irish for Steph. But we need more votes, log on vote for Steph!!!!!

Hate might be a bit of a strong word, but from what Ive seen of soccer its an excellant game for girls and immigrants.

So vote for a girl, Laurie

aucklandlaurie wrote:Hate might be a bit of a strong word, but from what Ive seen of soccer its an excellant game for girls and immigrants.

Should be huge in NZ then since half your population are either one, the other or both.....

Ouch!

Easy Irish..., I guess when you slot in a clock, we're all immigrants as most of us originally came from Africa.

A few others came from Mars, but we won't talk about them folks.

Sorry forgot to add the icon.

Voted Stephanie Roche though !

Puzzled by this thread on the rugby forum, I clicked. To those who are peddling the 'my balls are more oval than your balls', open your minds as lovers of rugby of course but also appreciators of other high quality sport.

Of the goals themselves vP produced a moment of beautifully executed quick thinking against a woefully placed goalkeeper; Rodriguez hit a very nice volley after one touch to position the ball: both goals built on passes played in the right direction. SR, however, took a pass from an unpromising angle, beat a closely marking opponent with two sublime touches then hit the ball perfectly past a blameless g/k. By far the most technically astute and best conceived of the three - so I've voted Stephanie Roche and advise all others to do likewise.

I'll still continue watching rugby by choice, though.

aucklandlaurie wrote:Hate might be a bit of a strong word, but from what Ive seen of soccer its an excellant game for girls and immigrants.

It seems Wayne Smith has a lot of time for Irish soccer players. You lot should be very grateful he took Roy Keane's advice (and England rugby really must be really peed off with Roy)

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).

Roche's goal was scored in the Peamount United against Wexford Youths game in Bus Eireann National League fixture.

Hmmm, it doesn't really fit one of the criteria very well (unless the huge crowd were just off-screen in the video I've seen)

Nice goal though. A public vote (open to abuse) together with a wave of positive discrimination might see it win. Like how X-Factor works.

Surely a good goal is a good goal is a good goal? Rather than evidence of positive discrimination, a win for S Roche's goal would show that it was considered technically the best of the three, end of.

You cannot reasonably diminish the quality by saying it was 'only' in a modest level women's match. Unlike the two blokes' goals, the pass she received was decidedly so-so; nor did the opposition help her - unlike the RvP header for example, which took advantage of a misplaced g/k.

All sporting achievements need context. That's why they have criteria.

Cyril wrote:All sporting achievements need context. That's why they have criteria.

If thats the case then how is the criteria applied? Would a goal scored by Robbie Keane (LA Galaxy Player) for Ireland be ruled out if it was scored against Malta? Would a Champions League Goal be worth more than a English Premiership Goal?

Sin é wrote:

Cyril wrote:All sporting achievements need context. That's why they have criteria.

If thats the case then how is the criteria applied? Would a goal scored by Robbie Keane (LA Galaxy Player) for Ireland be ruled out if it was scored against Malta?  Would a Champions League Goal be worth more than a English Premiership Goal?

I'm not sure how the criteria is applied but, knowing FIFA, it's probably never explained properly. According to the criteria, "the more important goal the better", so Champions League would count as higher than Premiership (and World Cup being the pinnacle, especially if the game is between two top sides). Every Robbie Keane goal should be disallowed because of his embarrassing celebration routines

Anyway, she came 2nd.

She certainly won best Dress hands down and still didn't get the prize. A guy wearing a suit takes it instead!!!!!!!!???? Cop on football world and quit with the blatant sexism.