Agencies
Zurich, January 13
James Rodriguez has won the Fifa Puskas Award following his wondergoal in Colombia's World Cup win over Uruguay, finishing ahead of Stephanie Roche and Netherlands international Robin van Persie.
The Real Madrid star enjoyed a sublime World Cup, with one of his tournament highlights a stunning turn and volley that set Colombia on their way to a 2-0 round-of-16 win over Uruguay."When I scored the goal, I dreamed of winning this award. So I'm really happy about that. I know it's decided by a general vote, so I want to say thank you to everyone who voted for me," James commented.
"I have only words of happiness and gratitude for those people. I believe it was a great goal. It will be hard to repeat but I'll keep trying. Maybe I won't score another like that, but hopefully I'll score some other nice ones."
James' goal had already been voted as the best of the 2014 World Cup, helping the 23-year-old to claim the Golden Boot prize with a total of six strikes, and earned him 42 per cent of the votes for the Puskas prize.
The Colombia international follows in the footsteps of illustrious names such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, with Hamit Altintop and Miroslav Stoch having also won the award since its introduction in 2009.
Roche earned her nomination thanks to a wondergoal in Peamount's 2-0 Irish Women's National League win over Wexford Youths and came second with 33% of the votes.
Van Persie's magnificent header in Netherlands' stunning 5-1 World Cup win over Spain earned him third place overall.
