Marcin Oleksy, a Polish amputee footballer, has won FIFA’s award for the best goal of 2022 for an overhead kick he scored in Poland’s domestic amputee football league. It was the first time an amputee football or any Polish player had been nominated for the award.
“It was hard for me to even dream of this,” said an emotional Oleksy after collecting the award at a ceremony in Paris. Among the other nominees he beat to the award were France star Kylian Mbappe and Brazil’s Richarlison for their efforts at last year’s World Cup.
This overhead kick by Polish amputee footballer Marcin Oleksy has been chosen as one of the candidates for FIFA's Puskás Award for the best goal of 2022.
Other nominees include Kylian Mbappé and Richarlison.
You can vote here: https://t.co/fteyV9U0OC pic.twitter.com/JbPV7Ke0Qt
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) January 13, 2023
Oleksy’s goal was scored in November last year while playing for his club side, Warta Poznań, against Stal Rzeszów in the Amp Futbol Ekstraklasa, Poland’s highest amputee football league.
Oleksy, 35, has also played for Poland’s national amputee football team, which hosted and finished third at the 2021 European Amputee Football Championships in Kraków.
After being nominated for the Puskas Award last month, Oleksy said that he “hopes it will help in the promotion and development of amputee football not only in Poland, but also around the world”.
“Thanks to amputee football, we, the players, can also show that disability does not exist and this nomination is the best example of that,” he added, in an interview for the Polish football association’s website.
Polish amputee footballer, Marcin Oleksy becomes the first amputee footballer to win FIFA's Puskás Award.
He was competing with Dimitri Payet and Richarlison. He is currently a player for the Wartan Porzan amputee team. 🎊 pic.twitter.com/ckmD7a9sCC
— Nana Kwesi Eshun (@_NanaCwesi_) February 27, 2023
In his youth, Oleksy was a goalkeeper on the books of Polish fourth-flight side Korona Kożuchów. In 2010, aged 23 and just six months after hanging up his boots, he was hit by a driver while working as a construction worker. That led to his left leg being amputated, reports local newspaper Gazeta Lubelska.
Initially he found it hard to adapt: “I was sitting in my wheelchair, smoking a cigarette, crying and asking, ‘Why did this happen to me?'” But nine years later, Oleksy took up amputee football, joining Warta Poznań. In 2022, he received his first call-up to the national team.
“Amputee football gave me a second life,” says Oleksy. “Football has always been my passion and gave me a lot of happiness. Now I can not only play again, but also play for the Polish national team, which I have always dreamed of.”
Main image credit: AMPFUTBOL POLSKA / MATERIAŁ PRASOWY
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
