What Is The Puskas Award?

"I hate to speak about individuals," Jose Mourinho famously once said. "Players don't win you trophies, teams win you trophies, squads win you trophies." And of course, the decorated former Chelsea, Real Madrid and Internazionale manager is right. Football is a team sport, and if a manager cannot structure their side in a coherent, organised way and motivate players to work hard for each other, they don't have a hope of winning titles and cups at the highest level.

That being said, it is often individual brilliance that excites football fans more than anything else. Whether it's a long-range screamer rifled out of nowhere into the top corner of the goal, or an amazing piece of trickery that allows a skillful winger to beat their opposite number, soccer supporters are inspired and enthused when they see an individual player rise from the pack and grab the spotlight.

So while league titles and European trophies are the ultimate goal for all pros, there are also a number of individual awards handed out to top players every single year to recognise special solo moments. In this article, we're going to be diving deep into one of them: the Puskas award.

What Is The Puskas Award?

Over the years, some high-profile players have had their glowing reputations across the world rubberstamped when they've become Puskas award winners. It's a trophy that has become more familiar to fans in recent years, and each year social media commentators and people in football broadcasting will discuss who is likely to win it. But what exactly is the Puskas award?

The Puskas Award is an annual award given by FIFA to the player they deem to have scored the most beautiful or aesthetically significant goal that calendar year. In other words, it's the most high-profile award for 'Goal of the Year' in football.

The process for deciding the winner of the Puskas Award begins with average football fans, who take part in a public vote to come up with a shortlist of three. Then, FIFA will choose a selection of journalists to decide which of those three players deserves to win the Puskas Award for that particular year.

Both male and female players are eligible to win the Puskas Award, and players at any decent level can theoretically be considered. FIFA has set out the following simple criteria as guidance for voters: the winner should be "an aesthetically beautiful goal, awarded without distinction of championship, gender or nationality, scored without the result of luck or a mistake and in support of Fair Play."

When Was The Puskas Award Created?

The Puskas Award has not been a part of football's annual awards ceremony line-up — which also includes the Ballon d'Or and the Yashin Trophy — for very long.

The award was first introduced in 2009, at the behest of the then-President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter. The disgraced Swiss football executive has since had his legacy torn to pieces by the corruption charges that ended his reign, but this is one aspect of his long-term legacy that has continued to be embraced by many within the sport. Ever since that first 2009 ceremony, the greatest aesthetic goal in football has been marked each year by the Puskas Award.

According to Blatter, the purpose of the Puskas Award is "to preserve the memory of those footballing greats who have left their mark on our history." This brings us to the man the award is named after… 

Why Is It Called The Puskas Award?

The Puskas Award takes its name from a legend of the game who many consider to be the greatest goalscorer to have walked the planet. Ferenc Puskas was a Hungarian international who played as a striker and terrorised defences across Europe during the 1950s and 60s, playing most famously for Spanish giants Real Madrid.

A lethal forward who scored 84 goals in 85 games for his country and guided them to the 1954 World Cup final, he also won ten league titles and three European Cups with Madrid, and was recognised by the IFFHS as the greatest top division scorer of the 20th century, with 806 goals in 793 official games over his whole career.

This record meant that it made sense for Puskas to give his name to this elite-level goalscoring award. At the launch of the new award in Budapest, Blatter said: "Ferenc Puskas was not only a player with immense talent who won many hours, but also a remarkable man. FIFA is therefore delighted to pay tribute to him by dedicating this award to his memory."

However, the award's name wasn't originally Blatter's idea; for that, credit goes to Dr. Istvan Csorba, a football-mad engineer who approached FIFA and persuaded them that this new award for the best goal of the year should be named after Puskas.

Who Won The First Puskas Award?

The first ever Puskas Award, handed out in 2009, went to arguably the greatest player in the world that year: Cristiano Ronaldo. CR7 was playing for Manchester United at the time, with the goal coming in the 2008/09 Champions League campaign in a match against Porto. It was a stunning long-range effort, a 40-yard strike with tons of movement and power that flew past the goalkeeper into the back of the net.

Afterwards, United's manager Sir Alex Ferguson said of the goal "I would have to go a long way back in the memory bank to find another one like that!" There were very few people who disagreed that Ronaldo deserved the inaugural Puskas Award.

Interestingly, while Ronaldo is one of several Puskas award winners who is known all over the world for his goalscoring ability, there are also quite a few obscure players who have got their hands on this award despite not playing their football at a top level. This reflects the idea that the Puskas is purely judged on aesthetic beauty rather than any other parameters.

How Many Puskas Does Ronaldo Have?

As of 2024, Cristiano Ronaldo has won the Puskas award one time.

Cristiano Ronaldo may have won the first-ever Puskas Award, but it's the only time he's been victorious in this competition. Since then, the former Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus forward has not scored another goal deemed by the Puskas voting team to deserve this accolade. Given his ultra-competitive personality and desperate desire to break as many records as possible before he retires, we wouldn't be surprised if that's something that continues to bug him.

How Many Puskas Does Messi Have?

Surprisingly, as of 2024, despite being nominated seven times, Lionel Messi has never won the Puskas award.

For a lot of undecided fans, the Ronaldo vs Messi debate was wrapped up in 2022 when Lionel Messi led his country to World Cup glory in Qatar while his great rival crashed out with Portugal in the knockout stages. Ultimately, individuals shouldn't be judged purely on the number of trophies they've won, but that World Cup triumph rubberstamped the Argentina captain's wonderful legacy.

However, one area in which Ronaldo does edge over Messi is when it comes to Puskas wins; while CR7 was awarded the first-ever 'Goal of the Year' award in 2009, Messi has never won this prize himself. This is despite the fact that he's been nominated an incredible seven times over the years. As he winds down his career at Inter Miami, it will be interesting to see whether the decorated forward scores a goal deemed worthy of winning a Puskas.

Puskas Award Winners: Who Has The Most Puskas Awards?

As we mentioned earlier, the Puskas Award gets handed out to whichever player is thought to have scored the most beautiful or aesthetically pleasing goal in a calendar year. Past winners vary from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who was celebrated for his ridiculously technical and audacious bicycle kick against England for Sweden in 2013, to the little-known Malaysian pro Mohd Faiz Subri, who won the 2016 Puskas for a beautiful swerving free-kick that left the opposition goalkeeper absolutely stunned.

Global heavyweights like James Rodriguez have won it, as have precocious European teenagers like Hungary's Daniel Zsori. However, it may not be a huge surprise to learn that no footballer has ever won the Puskas Award on more than one occasion.

Ultimately, the purpose of this award is to shine a light on scorers of beautiful, jaw-dropping goals, both at the highest level and in more obscure and less widely viewed leagues. Puskas voters and pundits evidently have no interest in handing this prize out to the same kinds of players each year, and it's more unpredictable and exciting as a result.

Here's a full list of Puskas Award winners, from the trophy's inception to the present day: