
Zlatan Ibrahimovic's superb strike for Sweden against England in Stockholm on Wednesday narrowly missed the deadline for being voted the best goal of 2012.
The Swede completed a hat-trick in Wednesday's 4-2 friendly victory before an audacious long range overhead kick left England keeper Joe Hart bewildered.
However, as voting for this year's prize - the Puskas Award - had opened just over seven hours earlier, it cannot be considered.
A FIFA statement read: "Given that a number of votes have already been cast for this year's award, the select committee for the Puskas Award may not, at this stage, include an additional nominee."
Ten goals were nominated for the award, named after Hungarian great Ferenc Puskas, with the winner to be announced on January 7 in Zurich.
Good news for Ibrahimovic is that his goal can be considered by the selection panel for the 2013 award.
Update:
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