By Alfredo Echenique Lugo
Apr 26, 2024, 10:00 PM EDT
The Puskás Award is a trophy awarded year after year by FIFA to the footballer who scored the best goal during that season. In 2015, the award went to Brazilian Wendell Lira, who at that time played for Goainesia in the third division of soccer in his country.
Lira took the distinction after scoring an excellent overhead kick goal after a collective play in a match for the Goiano championship against Atlético GO. The young Brazilian went down in history not only for winning the award, but for winning the final arm wrestling match against Lionel Messi who was one of the finalists for the award.
Wendell took the award with 46.7% of the votes, while the captain of the Argentine team got 33.3%.
Now almost 10 years later Wendell Lira is back in the news for the Puskás award. But this time for something very particular, since the now 35-year-old Brazilian wants to put his trophy up for sale and even set a price for the possible interested party.
“It is a prize that Messi probably will not have. My name is already in history, so if a proposal comes up to auction it off and win $400,000, why not? I would even accept $100,000 dollars,” Lira confessed in an interview with Cartoloucos.
Among all the awards that Lionel Messi has had in his individual career, it could be said that the Puskás is the only award that the Argentine has not been able to win in his extensive career of almost 20 years in football.
On the other hand, Lira, who retired from football in 2016 at just 27 years old, is currently a streamer and professional video game player. He also commented on what he would do with the money if he could sell the Puskás prize that he won in 2015. “I would set up my own video game institute in Goiania,” he admitted.
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