Amputee football star Marcin Oleksy was awarded with the 2022 FIFA Puskás Award for his mind blowing scissor-kick goal that beat players such as Kylian Mbappé, Dimitri Payet, and Richarlison to the final prize.
The accolade recognises the year’s most impressive strike across men’s and women’s football and the winner was revealed at The Best FIFA Football Awards on 27 February 2023.
Oleksy, the Polish amputee footballer who combined perfect technique with incredible athleticism to join other winners such as the likes of Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic on the Puskás Award roll of honour.
Oleksy describes the goal to ESPN: “When I saw how the ball was played toward me, at the height it was, I thought ‘this could be something beautiful… During practice, we don’t really often try to do these kind of shots. But when I started playing amputee football, I always wanted to do something special.”
Oleksy scored his wondergoal (found above) In November 2022 while playing for his club side, Warta Poznań against Stal Rzeszów in the top Polish professional league for amputee football, Ekstraklasa.
The 26-year-old winner was voted by fans and experts across the world. Oleksy’s strike came out on top in the voting, ahead of beautiful goals from finalists Dimitri Payet’s long range strike for Marseille against PAOK, and Tottenham Hotspur‘s Richarlison’s goal for Brazil against Serbia in the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Oleksy had previously been a goalkeeper for clubs in Poland’s lower leagues and worked as a construction worker during the day, before suffering the injury that led to his left leg being amputated below the knew.
In 2010, what started as a normal Saturday at work, Oleksy was filling a hole in the road when a vehicle veered off track and into his path, the then 23-year-old’s legs were crushed.
It took Oleksy’s nine years and the yearning to play ball with his son until Marcin got a sports prosthetic and began to rekindle his love for the beautiful game.
Oleksy found an opportunity to play amputee football for Warta Poznan and has never looked back since.
No one would have predicted at that first training session that it would result in Oleksy being nominated and then winning an award for a prize that has been won in the past by previous stars including Mohamad Salah, Son Heung-Min, and Olivier Giroud.
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