I thought Eric Hassli scored the Major League Soccer goal of the season last year with this incredible strike for the Vancouver Whitecaps.
The fans who voted to determine the award disagreed with me, picking this very impressive goal by Portland Timbers rookie Darlington Nagbe.
Hassli was back at it again Wednesday, though it wasn't in an MLS match.
The French striker gave the Whitecaps a 1-1 draw with visiting Toronto FC in the first leg of the Amway Canadian Championship final series with a sweet volley into the upper corner in stoppage time.
The second leg is next Wednesday in Toronto, with the winner earning a spot in the 2012-13 CONCACAF Champions League.
While the 31-year-old Hassli has scored plenty of goals in his career, 22-year-old Kevin Venegas was playing in just his third game as a professional Saturday night when Minnesota Stars FC played host to the Carolina RailHawks in a North American Soccer League match in Blaine, Minn.
Venegas will certainly remember his first career goal, as his audacious strike from about 30 yards out on the left side beat RailHawks goalkeeper Ray Burse and found the upper right corner to give Minnesota a 2-0 lead in the 53rd minute. The Stars held on for a 2-1 victory.
As usual, there have been some great goals in the Premier League this season.
The most recent contender for "Goal of the Season" is Newcastle United's Papiss Demba Cissé, the Senegalese striker who scored this stunning, swerving goal to seal Wednesday's 2-0 win over Chelsea.
How about a back-heel flick to yourself followed by a bicycle kick? Pretty nice, especially since it was pulled off by teenager Nkosi Burgess during an Under-15 match in New York.
Here's Bubacar Kambi Njie, a 24-year-old Spanish striker who goes by the name of Bakari, scoring off a back-heel volley for the Espanyol B team against Montanesa in a fourth division match in Spain.
Players score on volleys quite often. But from their own half of the field? That's not something you see every day, which made Stefan Ishizaki's opportunistic, long-distance strike for Elfsborg in a Swedish Allsvenskan match against Orebro so impressive.
Similarly, it's not often you see a coach physically attack his own player. Yet Fiorentina manager Delio Rossi – now the former Fiorentina manager – didn't take too kindly to Adem Ljaijc's comments sarcastic applause after he was removed in the 32nd minute of Wednesday's Serie A match against Novara in Italy and went after the Serbian striker in the dugout. Fiorentina, which was down 2-0 when Ljaijc was withdrawn, rallied for a 2-2 tie and is 15th in the 20-team league. The league suspended Rossi for three months, even though the club fired him after the match.
And finally, this is the first – and I'm guessing last – video we'll be posting that is set on a barge in a canal. Former Ajax, Juventus, Fulham, Manchester United and Dutch national team keeper Edwin Van Der Sar took his spot between the posts in a goal floating on a barge in Amsterdam and faced shots from the shore, including some by current Ajax players, in this unique adidas event.
It's been a while since we've posted, so we've got a treasure trove of great goals and stories from soccer around the world. Let's go ...
Ruben Negredo is the type of player every team needs.
Spanish club Gimnastica de Torrelavega trailed Burgos 1-0 in a Segunda Division B match on March 21 when the striker scored the equalizer in the 57th minute.
Nineteen minutes later, goalkeeper Ivan Crespo was sent off for tripping a Burgos player in the box and Negredo took over between the posts – and promptly saved a penalty kick.
This is just your everyday, average 30-yard left-footed volley by a right-footed player.
Thamsanqa Sangweni's jaw-dropping strike in the 29th minute gave AmaZulu a 1-0 victory over Witbank Spurs in a round of 16 match in the South African Nedbank Cup on March 24.
We're not sure what is more impressive about the incredible assist that on-loan Swedish striker Nicklas Bärkroth pulled off for Portuguese side Uniao Leiria:
That he was able to generate the power needed to serve a "rabona" that far or the fact that he thought about it before his unique cross that led to Bruno Moraes' goal.
Unfortunately, though, Leiria lost the match 2-1 and stands 15th in the 16-team Liga Sagres.
Rest assured, sportsmanship and fair play are alive and well in soccer.
With his team leading 1-0 on the day and 3-2 on aggregate in the final minute of their recent Coppa Italia Dilettanti match, US Termoli striker Vittorio Esposito dove to win a penalty kick against Torres in the amateur competition.
While Torres players vehemently protested to the referee that there wasn't any contact, Esposito's conscience apparently got the best of him, as he stepped to the spot and made no attempt to convert the ill-earned penalty kick.
Apparently, it takes a lot to stop a soccer match in Chile.
You might think that a magnitude 7.1 earthquake shaking the stadium might lead to a delay, but players from Colo Colo and Palestino just kept going during their Primera Division match on March 25 in Santiago.
It's been a tough season for fans of German club FC Magdeburg.
Their team is last in the 18-team Regionalliga Nord, one of three leagues that makes up the country's Fourth Division, having managed just 16 goals in 25 matches.
But while the team's attack is lacking, their fans' sense of humor is razor-sharp.
Case in point: During the club's match against BAK '07 on March 25, a group of Magdeburg supporters brought large arrows and pointed them at the opposing goal in an attempt to help their players find the elusive area.
The fans were rewarded with a goal, with American Chris Wright's 80th-minute strike sparing the team from being shut out for the sixth consecutive game. But BAK '07 scored in the 89th to extend Magdeburg's winless streak to 12 matches (0-8-4).
Meanwhile, fans of Turkish Super Lig club Eskisehirspor had a great response to the country's governing body when it announced a ban on bringing flares into stadiums.
After the brief protest, the banner was rolled back up, the flares were extinguished and the match went on without a hitch.
Brazilian icon Ronaldinho might be on the back end of his career, but he's still having fun.
He and two teammates celebrated a goal in Sunday's 2-1 win over Bangu in the Taça Rio by reaching back to childhood for a game of leapfrog.
And finally, we've all been on the wrong side of a blowout. But cheer up, because it least it wasn't as bad as the rout Nova 2010 FC endured a few weeks ago – at least hopefully it wasn't.
Wheel Power FC set what is believed to be a British record as they thrashed Nova 2010 FC 58-0 in a Torbay Sunday Football League match. The previous records for goals and margin of victory was held by Illogan, which beat Madron FC 55-0 in November 2010.
Robbie Bowker scored 18 goals and his brother Stuart added 10 for Wheel Power, which led 5-0 just 5 minutes into the game. It was the second meeting of the season between the teams; Nova 2010 lost 11-3 in the first match.
"A lot of the players didn't turn up so we expected to lose, but not by that much," Nova's Lewis Parker, 60, told reporters a few days later.
Division leader Wheel Power scored 23 and 30 goals in earlier matches and averages nearly 13 goals per game.
"It was a bit embarrassing, but fair play to the other team for carrying on – they were really sporting," Wheel Power player-manager Andy Woodward said. "The result will certainly help at the end of the season if it goes down to goal difference."
A Belgian referee issued an unusual red card recently, booking a player who was unconscious and strapped onto a stretcher.
Julien Lecomte from Templeueve was knocked out in a collision with a defender from Genly-Quévy in a match in the amateur Hainaut Provincial match Feb. 26.
But before paramedics took Lecomte to a waiting ambulance, where doctors diagnosed him with three displaced vertebrae and a concussion, the referee issued him a yellow card for diving – he'd been cautioned earlier in the match, so a red card followed.
Host Templeueve lost the match 2-1.
In the long run, two great goals
Brazilian striker Neymar, a 20-year-old considered one of the world's top young players, scored a pair of excellent individual goals in a hat trick Wednesday as Santos beat Internacional 3-1 in a Copa Libertadores match.
There have been some amazing occurrences in soccer matches worldwide this week, so sit back and enjoy these highlights.
'Imperfect' hat trick
Michael Duberry couldn't stop scoring Saturday.
Luckily, the Oxford United defender's final goal of the day actually counted for his own team.
Duberry scored two own goals to give Hereford United the lead in a English League Two match, the second one in the 86th minute, but came up with a 90th-minute equalizer as Oxford pulled out a wild 2-2 draw.
In his first 19 seasons, the 36-year-old former Chelsea and Leeds United center back scored just seven goals in 362 appearances, but has three in 21 matches for Oxford.
Duberry had some fun with his performance on Twitter, calling it the "imperfect hat-trick – left foot (OG), header (OG) and right foot."
Two teammates, two yellow cards, but only one ball
Everyone who plays for Bury knows captain Steven Schumacher takes penalty kicks for the English League One side.
Apparently, everyone except Giles Coke, that is.
When Coke was taken down in the box in the 35th minute of Saturday's match against Yeovil Town, he tussled with Schumacher over who would step to the spot. Both players ended up being issued yellow cards in the bizarre sequence.
Schumacher and other teammates finally convinced Coke to back down, and Schumacher converted the penalty kick as Bury went on to a 3-2 win.
"Steven Schumacher is the captain, I've given him the responsibility to take penalties and as far as I'm concerned the rest of the team know that," Bury manager Richie Barker told BBC Radio Manchester.
The 12th man: Mother Nature
Every once in a while, you'll see a player score an "Olimpico" goal – bending the ball into the goal directly off a corner kick.
How about the same player doing it twice in one half?
Coleraine's Paul Owens did just that in a 3-1 win over visiting Glenavon in an Irish Premiership match Saturday, playing the gusty winds to perfection with his left-footed corner kicks in the second half.
Owens nearly had a third in similar fashion, but Glenavon goalkeeper David O'Hare tipped it over the crossbar.
From way downtown
This was just a friendly, but Cristian Villagra of Ukraine's FC Metalist had a free kick, saw a goalkeeper off his line and fired away.
From 70 yards out.
The Argentine left back's strike got just under the crossbar and over the leaping Dinamo Moscow keeper for an impressive goal.
Premier League popularity
More than a million people watched Manchester United's 2-1 win over Arsenal on Sunday morning on Fox, the first live telecast of a Premier League match on a major U.S. network – more than double the previous record for a broadcast on cable.
The game, which kicked off 10 a.m. Central, drew 1.3 million viewers.
ESPN's best audience for a live Premier League match is 528,000 viewers for another Manchester United-Arsenal game in December 2010, while Fox Soccer's high of 418,000 viewers came last February for a match between Chelsea and Liverpool.
Fox will show another live match on Sunday, Feb. 5, as Chelsea faces Manchester United.
Speaking of which, many Arsenal fans were frustrated by some of manager Arsene Wenger's decisions in the match and the team's status in general – the Gunners are in fifth place, well out of the title chase and looking at the possibility of a seventh consecutive season without a trophy. Included in that group, strangely enough, is the president of Rwanda. On his verified Twitter account, Paul Kagame posted several comments about Wenger. "When a good team (players) and a good coach fail for long, to deliver, one of them has to change, or even both!" he Tweeted.
It's time for our semi-regular video tour around the soccer world.
A triple for Deuce
U.S. national team forward Clint Dempsey became the first American to score three times in a Premier League match, bagging a hat trick in host Fulham's 5-2 victory over Newcastle United at Craven Cottage.
Two weeks after scoring three goals in a 4-0 win over Charlton in an FA Cup third-round match, Dempsey found the net in the 59th, 65th and 89th minutes as Fulham scored all of its goals in the second half after trailing 1-0 at halftime.
Dempsey has a career-best 15 goals in all competitions this season and 52 since joining Fulham from Major League Soccer's New England Revolution in January 2007. His 42 goals in Premier League play are the most for an American, as he passed Brian McBride (36) earlier this season.
A cringe-worthy miss
On the other end of the spectrum, many are wondering if Robbie Findley already has wrapped up the miss of the year competition.
The American forward seemingly had to score for Nottingham Forest, standing alone inches in front of the goal with the goalkeeper down during Tuesday's FA Cup third-round replay against Leceister City. But his shot somehow sailed over the bar, and Forest went on to lose 4-0.
Laduma
Dempsey and Findley were teammates on the U.S. national team at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, which is the topic of the new documentary "Laduma" – the South African slang word for goal.
Philadelphia filmmakers Ashwin Chaudhary and Jon Korn tell two parallel stories in the film, one of the U.S. team's journey to the World Cup and the other of South Africa's journey from Apartheid to playing host to the world's biggest sporting event.
Here's an interview with Chaudhary and the trailer for the movie, which was renamed from its original title of "One Goal:"
Assisted throw-in
Benfica's Maxi Pereira and Axel Witsel got a little crafty with this throw-in last week, finding a sneaky way to restart play quickly.
As Pereira grabbed the ball, Witsel knelt down to tie his shoe. Pereira tossed the ball off his teammate's back and promptly whipped in a cross.
Let's take a hop across the pond to England for some fun soccer stories.
Offside explanation on the money?
In honor of this summer's London Olympics, England's Royal Mint issued new designs for the 50-pence coin, each highlighting one of the 29 sports in the Games.
The soccer coin features a graphical explanation of the offside law, one of sport's most challenging rules to simply explain.
Production journalist Neil Wolfson came up with the design, which uses triangles to represent the attacking team and squares for the defending team.
Arrows show potential passes for the attacker with the ball; the teammate level with the second-to-last player from the defensive team is listed as "not offside," while the other between the two defensive players is shown as "offside."
As if to underscore the confusing nature of the law, some referees criticized Wolfson's design – which was selected over nearly 30,000 entries – as inaccurate as it doesn't point out the 1995 revision that it is "not an offense in itself to be in an offside position." Wolfson responded by noting that there is no mention of any offense on the coin.
"Neil Wolfson designed his coin in the hope that it would encapsulate football in a simple image," according to the Royal Mint website. "As the offside rule is a perennial talking point, the image is designed to provoke discussion, which was what he was aiming for."
Something borrowed and blue
Longtime Manchester City supporter Karen Bell didn't follow all of the wedding traditions when she got married to a fellow Blues fan last month, but she certainly met two of them.
The 38-year-old made her own wedding dress, using her husband's old City jerseys.
"We wanted to do something different because we have both been married before," Karen Bell told the Manchester Evening News. "It was a labour of love. I was at the sewing machine six nights a week."
After the ceremony on Dec. 21, the happy couple rushed off to Etihad Stadium, where they watched Manchester City thump Stoke City 3-0.
Fabulous FA Cup goals
Premier League teams enter the FA Cup in the third round, and this weekend's matches produced two stellar strikes by Frenchmen.
Midfielder Arnaud Mendy came up with an impressive volley as Macclesfield Town of League Two, three levels below the Premier League, tied Bolton 2-2 to earn a replay against the Premier League side.
Meanwhile, Hatem Ben Arfa showed off his considerable skills on a tremendous run and thunderous finish to help Newcastle United oust fellow Premier League side Blackburn Rovers 2-1.
Just thought I'd share a couple of bizarre moments from soccer fields across the world the past week.
First to Hong Kong, where Festus Baise scored an incredible own goal last Friday as Citizen AA topped host Sun Hei 3-2 in an HKFA First Division match.
The Nigerian defender tried to clear out a cross from Sun Hei's Jack Sealy, but his acrobatic attempt went awry – in spectacular fashion.
Next we're off to Holland for Wednesday's fourth-round Dutch Cup match between host Ajax and Eredivisie leader AZ Alkmaar.
With Ajax up 1-0 in the 36th minute of the game, a fan ran onto the field and attacked AZ goalkeeper Esteban Alvarado, who responded by kicking the 19-year-old twice while the supporter was on the ground.
Alvarado was red carded by referee Bas Nijhuis, a decision that prompted Alkmaar manager Gertjan Verbeek to pull his team off the field.
On Thursday, the KNVB – the Dutch soccer governing body – overturned Alvarado's red card, but didn't issue a ruling on the abandoned match. Ajax, meanwhile, said the fan already had been banned from attending games and should not have been allowed in the stadium.
Just a few weeks ago, Norwegian Jone Samuelsen scored on a header from 62 yards out, believed to be the longest headed goal in world history.
Now it's not even the longest of 2011.
Defender Ryujiro Ueda bettered Samuelsen's effort by a yard on Sunday, scoring the lone goal in Fagiano Okayama's 1-0 victory over Yokohama in a Japanese J-2 League match.
What a strike
You know you wish you could score a goal like Fulham's Andy Johnson scored in Thursday's 4-1 win over Polish side Wisla Krakow in the Europa League.
Ugly scenes in Romania
There were bizarre scenes in a Romanian match between Steaua Bucharest and Petrolul Ploiesti as a fan ran onto the field and punched a player in the head.
The Petrolul Ploiesti fan, upset that Steaua Bucharest had been awarded a penalty kick, blindsided Steaua defender George Galamaz and kept running. Steaua players eventually took him down and kicked him, leading to red cards for both Novak Martinovic and goalkeeper Razvan Stanca.
The match resumed, only to be stopped again and abandoned after Steaua backup goalkeeper Ciprian Tatarusanu suffered burns when he was hit with a flare.
Galamaz suffered a broken cheekbone and was having hearing problems. The Romanian Football Federation announced that Petrolul Ploiesti will have to play its next six home matches with no fans in the stands, and the team said it would ban the fan or fans responsible for the incident for life.
Best of the MLS
And the final four is set for the Major League Soccer playoffs, with both conference finals set for Sunday. Here's a look back at some of the top goals of the regular season, from ESPN.
Two of the best bicycle kick goals you'll ever see, and both on the same day.
First up was Bayer Leverkusen's Eren Derdiyok. The Swiss striker snapped a 1-1 tie in the 65th minute Saturday with this incredible goal, sparking his side to a 3-1 victory over Wolfsburg in a Bundesliga match in Germany.
Then just a few hours later in Spain, Malaga and Getafe were tied in second-half stoppage time when Brazilian Julio Baptista came up with this strike to give Malaga a 3-2 victory in La Liga action.
