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Riley McGree's Puskas defeat proves artistry can't be left to a popular vote
Evan Morgan Grahame
Expert
25th September, 2018
10
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Riley McGree's wonder goal was seen around the world (AAP Image/Darren Pateman)
Evan Morgan Grahame
Expert
25th September, 2018
10

Riley McGree, scorer of the most beautiful goal last season, was never really in with a chance.

When the decision-making process for FIFA’s Puskas Award is left to a fan vote, suddenly it becomes a matter of who out of the nominees has the biggest, most web-activated following.

At that point, one might assume Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo, two of football’s uberstars, would go cantering into the lead.

But dwarfing even the Real Madrid stars’ collection of global admirers is Mohamed Salah’s lassoing of the entire nation of Egypt; when it comes to online polls, where individual, opt-in votes count, this country is practically undefeated.

With an estimated population of 95 million, Egypt are the largest Middle Eastern nation. So, as far as pure bulk goes, they’ve Australia outclassed 4-1.

According to the Mirror, more than a million Egyptians voted for Salah in the general election. They willingly threw away their democratic right to participate in picking a leader so they could collectively organise a hot meme for every clickbait outlet to park on their front page.

Yes, the Egyptian democracy exists largely in name only, and those votes for Salah were probably taken as seriously as the votes for Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s political opponents, but still.

Salah won Liverpool’s player of the month, week, and goal-scoring awards throughout the season thanks to this same mammoth army of Egyptian online voters.

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Internet penetration is low in Egypt, relative to many other Middle Eastern nations, but football is astonishingly popular. Salah is Egyptian football’s sparkling jewel, and is prized as such, almost a singular representative of the entire country’s footballing talent, the sum of their national ambition, the talented, successful Son of the Nile.

His stunning season, where he scored 44 goals in 52 games across all competitions for Liverpool, has given him demi-god status, appropriate enough for a country whose national team is called the Pharaohs. 

Mohamed Salah

Mohamed Salah of Liverpool (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

But none of this should be allowed to tilt the perspective when deciding which goal scored in 2017-18 was the most beautiful.

All of Egypt’s clicks can’t make Salah’s goal more aesthetically pleasing than anyone else’s. The goal Salah was nominated for wasn’t even particularly good, or even his best of the season. In fact, his Puskas-winning, wrestle-and-turn strike against Everton only came in second when competing against other goals scored by Salah for – and as judged by – Liverpool in ’17-18, let alone against goals scored by the rest of planet football.

Sure, the goal against the Toffees married grit of the preceding wrestle with the purring smoothness of the curled finish, the ball hitting and rolling down the net like a gleaming dove might flying through some celestial window’s gossamer silk curtain, all performed under falling flakes of virgin snow, but it wasn’t that good!

James Milner probably put it best on Twitter:

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No, most of the other nominees scored better goals, but none to the degree of McGree’s.

Was it scorpion-fatigue? Olivier Giroud won last season’s Puskas with this goal against Crystal Palace, a lovely backheeled, over-the-shoulder volley, capping off an eviscerating counter-attack. But even a goal as similar to McGree’s as this is is quite clearly inferior; given the small, stutter-stepping Giroud is forced to do in anticipation of the ball arriving. McGree’s was hit perfectly in stride. Giroud’s was hit from just outside the six-yard box. McGree’s might even qualify as a goal scored from outside the penalty area. Giroud’s cannons of the crossbar in that wholly agreeable Tony-Yeboah sort of way – James Rodriguez’s 2014 Puskas-winning volley for Colombia at the World Cup also benefited from this – but Petr Cech is close enough to dive for it. Dean Bouzanis is rooted to the spot for McGree’s, objectively more striking, you’ll agree.

And so here it is, one more time:

Superlative examples of one person’s ability are always magnified if they end with a goal, primarily because it sits as a miraculous exception to the rule of football, that collective coherence and a sort of psychically-shared intention is the best way of winning. But supreme examples of the latter are as wonderful, perhaps more so.

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Although curiously not nominated in 2013-14, perhaps Jack Wilshere’s goal against Norwich was the most beautiful scored that season. In 2015, Wendell Lira won for this effort, a gorgeous, whirling overhead kick that finished a sequence of rat-a-tat passing.

McGree’s goal had all these elements, plus a much tougher, rarer finish. 

Riley McGree of the Jets scores a second-half goal from a scorpion kick

AAP Image/Darren Pateman

Matters of taste can’t be codified exactly, people will always prefer something over another for an inarticulable reason. The Puskas Award was thought up in 2009, and this year’s result is just one of many perplexing outcomes from the FIFA awards ceremony; Salah was one of three players shortlisted for the FIFA Player of the Year, but didn’t make the best XI. Thibaut Courtois won best goalkeeper, but David de Gea was the keeper in the best XI. Dani Alves missed 13 of Paris Saint-Germain’s 38 league games last season through absence or injury, as well as missing the entire World Cup, and yet was also included in the best XI.

Don’t get me started on Sam Kerr’s exclusion.

There is no logic here, cold comfort but comfort nonetheless for McGree and all of us who were hoping in vain for him.

So, no, it was not ratified by the Puskas bauble, but McGree will always have that goal, and so will the world.

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Art should never be judged by committee, especially not one that swells out into the millions. The Mona Lisa is not the finest work in the Lourve. ‘Despacito’ is not the best song on YouTube. Avatar is not the greatest film ever made.

The system is flawed, so I’ll choose to ignore what it rewards.

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Evan Morgan Grahame
Expert
Evan Morgan Grahame is a Melbourne-based journalist. Gleaning what he could from his brief career as a painter, the canvas of the football pitch is now his subject of contemplation, with the beautiful game sketching new, intriguing compositions every week. He has been one of The Roar's Expert columnists since 2016.

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