Claim: Social media users are claiming that Alex Telles’ goal against Villareal has been voted the best goal of the 2021-22 season of the UEFA Champions League.
Verdict: The claim is false. Thiago Alcantara’s goal for Liverpool against Porto won the poll.
Full text
Some social media users have claimed Alex Telles’ goal for Manchester United against Villareal during the Group Stage of the just ended UEFA Champions League season has been voted as the best goal of the competition.
A number of these posts, which have been sighted by DUBAWA, were made by pages with thousands of followers.
One of the pages, We’re Manchester United, has over 119,000 followers. The claim made by the page has attracted 28K reactions, 386 comments and has been shared at least 218 times.
Another page where the claim has been made is ‘Glory Glory Man United – a page with 44,500 followers. The post has attracted 45K reactions, 461 comments, and 156 shares.
Several other users have made the same claim and this can be found here, here, here, and here.
Verification
To verify the claim, we relied on official information from uefa.com, the official website of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).
On Tuesday, May 31, 2022, UEFA announced the top ten goals of the 2021/22 Champions League campaign.
According to a publication on its website, the goals were selected by a Technical Observer panel and then put to a vote.
The ten goals selected by the panel were:
| Scorer | Team | Game | Date |
| Karim Benzema | Read Madrid | Chelsea 1-3 Real Madrid | 06/04/2022 |
| Vinícius Júnior | Real Madrid | Shakhtar Donetsk 0-5 Real Madrid | 19/10/2021 |
| Kylian Mbappé | Paris | Paris 1-0 Real Madrid | 15/02/2022 |
| Robert Lewandowski | Bayern | Dynamo Kyiv 1-2 Bayern | 23/11/2021 |
| Marco Asensio | Real Madrid | Real Madrid 2-0 Inter | 07/12/2021 |
| Alex Telles | Manchester United | Manchester United 2-1 Villarreal | 29/09/2021 |
| Sébastien Thill | Sheriff | Real Madrid 1-2 Sheriff | 28/09/2021 |
| Rodrygo | Real Madrid | Real Madrid 2-3 Chelsea | 12/04/2022 |
| Lionel Messi | Paris | Paris 2-0 Manchester City | 28/09/2021 |
| Thiago Alcántara | Liverpool | Liverpool 2-0 Porto | 24/11/2021 |
A few days later, the organizers of the competition made another publication, headlined, “Thiago Alcántara tops fan vote for best goal of the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League.”
“The Liverpool midfielder’s sweetly struck effort against Porto at Anfield has won the fan vote for goal of the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League season. Thiago Alcántara’s sweetly struck piledriver for Liverpool against Porto on Matchday 5 has been voted goal of the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League in a fan poll,” the story reads.
Thiago was followed by Lionel Messi for his goal against Manchester City and Alex Telles’ volley against Villareal.
Manchester United have also confirmed this. In a publication on its website, the club said that “Alex Telles has finished third in the voting for UEFA’s 2021/22 Champions League Goal of the Tournament award.”
Conclusion
Alex Telles’ goal against Villareal during the Group stage of the 2021/22 UEFA Champions League has not been voted the best goal of the campaign. Liverpool’s Thiago Alcantara’s goal won the poll.
