There is hardly any more tradition in German football. Since 1971, i.e. for 52 years and across generations, German football fans have chosen the best, most spectacular or simply most beautiful goal of every year. And as in the early days, the response to the 2023 vote was once again enormous. 370,000 spectators and users of the Sportschau took part and their choice was very clear: with over 95,000 votes, Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen won the prestigious Sportschau award.
| Florian Wirtz, Bayer 04 Leverkusen | 26.78% |
|---|---|
Radouane Chaanoune, Fortuna Düsseldorf | 16.84% |
Maximilian Putz, DJK Vilzing | 10.53% |
Joshua Kimmich, FC Bayern Munich | 9.66% |
Marius Bülter, FC Schalke 04 | 6.50% |
Connor Metcalfe, FC St. Pauli | 6.05% |
Goncalo Paciencia, VfL Bochum | 5.06% |
Jean-Luc Dompé, Hamburger SV | 5.03% |
Timo Hübers, 1. FC Cologne | 4.34% |
Jan-Niklas Beste, 1. FC Heidenheim | 4.34% |
Charles Herrmann, German national team | 2.79% |
Tim Skarke, FC Schalke 04 | 2.09% |
500,000 postcards for the first goal of the year
When the first Goal of the Year medal was awarded to Ulrik Le Fevre from Gladbach in 1971, the votes came to the editorial office in Cologne by postcard. There were almost 500,000. Students, pupils and prisoners from the nearby Klingelpütz prison helped with the evaluation. 52 years later, the votes are mostly cast online and the evaluation takes place at the click of a mouse. But the enthusiasm for the competition has not waned even after half a century. “This is certainly also because the fascination for football has never waned,” the competition’s inventor, Klaus Schwarze, once suspected. “And goals are the best thing in football.”
Wirtz will meet in October 2023 with a demanding solo
And Florian Wirtz scored a particularly nice one in October 2023 in the Bundesliga game Bayer Leverkusen against SC Freiburg. The attacking midfielder, who was only 20 at the time, impressed with a technically demanding dribble solo goal, which resulted in him nimble and casually outplaying the Freiburg defense in a small space and then beautifully shooting the ball from an acute angle through a narrow alley between all of Freiburg’s opponents kicked into the net. Rating particularly great and absolutely worthy of the title of Goal of the Year 2023.
The eighth solo goal in Goal of the Year
Solos are not uncommon for goal of the month. With Wirtz’s, there are a total of 73 hits in this category in the long TdM history. Eight of them were also awarded the Goal of the Year medal. And what great, even breathtaking hits there haven’t been over the years. The honor of being mentioned first here goes to the legendary Reinhard “Stan” Libuda with his miracle solo in August 1971. Perhaps the most spectacular solo run of all was shown by Daniel Simmes from Borussia Dortmund in October 1984. Also unforgettable are Lothar Matthäus’ long-distance solo goal at the 1990 World Cup or Pierre Littbarski’s solo combat goal in April 1985 or, more recently, the “Gesamtkunstwerk”, the brilliant Japanese-Portuguese co-production by Frankfurt’s Daichi Kamada and André Silva in June 2020.
The youngest goalscorer of the year
Wirtz is the youngest player on the short and illustrious list of goalscorers of the year. At the age of 20, he is at the beginning of a great career that will perhaps even bring him one or two gold medals at the sports show. In any case, the beginning with his extraordinary dribble goal is promising. This is the second Goal of the Year award for Bayer Leverkusen. Bernd Schuster received the first in 1994.
Source: red/Markus Wessel