Panama’s Marta Cox scored ‘best goal of the World Cup’ on superb free kick

The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup has seen a lot of spectacular goals so far, but one from Panama’s Marta Cox early in their group stage match against France Wednesday stood out. In the second minute of that contest, Panama was awarded a free kick from well outside the box. And Cox came through there, delivering a curving strike into the top left corner that Fox’s Jimmy Conrad called “the best goal of the World Cup”:

Here’s another angle of that:

This is the first Women’s World Cup Panama has appeared in, and this was the first goal for the country on that stage. They were already eliminated from potential progression ahead of this match after losing their first two matches (falling 4-0 against Brazil and 1-0 against Jamaica), but Cox certainly gave them a spectacular moment. And she drew a ton of praise for that from people and media outlets around the globe:

This also made some negative history for the French team:

The match as a whole here didn’t work out as well for Panama, with France responding with five unanswered goals (including a hat trick from Kadidiatou Diani) before Yomira Pinzón added another one for Las Canaleras. But the 26-year-old Cox, the team captain, gave her country an incredible highlight. And it’s one that stacks up against some of the best goals from this tournament so far.

[Jimmy Conrad on Twitter]