Puskas Award needs Omedi's rabona goal

KCCA youngster Joel Sserunjogi had put the home side ahead with a beautiful strike outside the 18-yard-box inside nine minutes.

This levelled scores on aggregate in this Fufa Super 8 second first leg match, the first having ended 1-0 in favour of Kitara, thanks to - who else - Omedi’s goal.

The moment Lugogo stopped

The stage needed Omedi, who turned 30 in June, to step in once again, and boy did he do it in style!

A ball was launched from inside his half and as always, Omedi was there at the other end waiting. The Kitara striker came out top in an aerial duel with a KCCA defender, who was dispatched for a packet of cigarettes.

In a split second, Omedi - right on the edge of the penalty box down the right -  spun, ran his right leg behind the back of his standing left and poked a high ball beyond KCCA young goalkeeper Anthony Emojong’s reach for a grand 10th minute equaliser.

Omedi’s sumptuous technique is called a rabona in association football, and his final execution is good for any award anywhere in the world. 

“I was there,” said KCCA FC former chairman, Martin Sekajja, “I celebrated the opponent’s goal and later discovered it was against my team.” Sekajja first posted the above in a shared WhatsApp group, and later - in a phone call with this writer - allowed for the comments to be published.

“It was a thrilling game. We need to gazette KCCA/Kitara matches as special dates,” he added.

The match ended 3-3 on the day and 4-3 on aggregate in favour of Kitara, who progressed to the semifinals due this weekend.

But in the immediate aftermath and long after that, it was Omedi's goal that was talk of the town and internet, with most sharing its video across different platforms and calling for it to be considered for the famous Fifa Puskas Award this year.

The good news

Fortunately, there is no rocket science or politics to enter the Fifa Puskas Award, and Omedi’s should - without doubt - be right in there. 

The criteria are fairly simple: “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,” read in part the Fifa Puskas Award rules.

Examples of worthy goals include long-range shots, team goals, rabona, overhead kicks, individual plays, scorpion kicks, etc. Omedi ticks most of these.

Also, while Fufa member associations can submit goals for a Puskas Award recognition, it is not limited to them alone.

Anyone can submit a goal for consideration for the Fifa Puskas Award. This includes fans, players, coaches, and national football associations. Now you know. YOU, reading this, can actually submit Omedi’s goal.

Brazilian Guilherme Madruga, who scored an acrobatic overhead kick for Botafogo-SP in June 2023, won that year’s Puskas Award.

The above award recognised the best goal scored during the period from 19 December 2022 to 20 August 2023 inclusive, regardless of championship, gender or nationality.

The Fifa Puskas Award was created in 2009 in honour of the late Ferenc Puskas, captain and star of the Hungarian national team during the 1950s, to celebrate the player judged to have scored the best goal of the year.

Once nominated, votes from users of Fifa.com whittle down ten nominees to a final trio of candidates, from which a panel of football experts decide the winner. The victor is normally revealed at The Best Fifa Football Awards 

Nominating and voting of Puskas Award

• Nominations are compiled by Fifa in collaboration with football stakeholders

• Fifa experts panel then narrows the shortlist to 11 goals, which shall are published on Fifa.com

• Public vote among fans registered on Fifa.com starts

• Eventual winner selected by an international jury comprising, on the one hand, a panel of Fifa Legends and, on the other hand, fans from all over the world registered on Fifa.com. 

• Each of the two groups of voters within the jury has the same electoral weight irrespective of the actual number of voters in those groups

• Each member of the public who is registered on Fifa.com and each Fifa Legend on the panel is entitled to nominate three goals out of the shortlist of 11 compiled. 

• The three goals nominated by each jury member receives five points, three points or one point respectively, depending on whether the jury member places the goal first, second or third

• The Award is bestowed upon the goal that receives the most scoring points

• In the event that there is still a tie, the goal with the highest number of total scoring points from the panel of Fifa Legends shall be the winner