Oscarine Masukule Misses Out on Landmark Record

South Africa and Baroka FC goalkeeper Oscarine Masukule missed out on becoming the first African and the first goalkeeper to win the FIFA Puskas Award to set a highly anticipated landmark record after the South African goalkeeper’s acrobatic overhead kick was shortlisted for the recently held FIFA Best Award in London.

Masukule in the dying seconds of Baroka’s match against Orlando Pirates in the Absa Premiership came off his goalpost and scored with an overhead kick from the edge of the box to secure his team a point ending in a 1-1 draw.

The 24-year-old’s goal was backed by crowned FIFA Best Men’s Player Cristiano Ronaldo at the award ceremony; a goal that he described as “amazing”.

Sadly, the much-anticipated record did not become a reality after Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud’s scorpion kick against Crystal Palace was voted as the best goal of the year.

According to the results of the voting process that were supervised and monitored by independent observer PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) of Switzerland, striker Giroud accumulated 36.17 percent of the 792,062 votes, Masukule 27.48 percent; while Venezuela’s female national team player Deyna Castellanos received 20.47 percent of the total votes.

Despite the goalkeeper missing out on the award, many Africans supporters have however embraced the 24-year-old’s record at becoming the first African player to be shortlisted as one of the finalists since the award was established in 2009.

Feature Photo: Two Mountains