Turkish national Selçuk Inan wins coveted UEFA 'goal of the year' award

Selçuk Inan's dramatic 89th-minute goal against Iceland to send Turkey directly into Euro 2016 has been chosen on Monday as goal of the year on UEFA's Twitter account. The Galatasaray midfielder's rocketing free-kick last October, beat out an effort by Barcelona star Lionel Messi to win the coveted UEFA 'goal of the year' award.

Turkey, who had all but lost hope of qualifying for Euro 2016 months ago following their dramatic draw with Latvia on home soil, secured direct qualification from Group A as the best third-place team with Selçuk Inan's last-gasp free kick securing a 1-0 win at home against Iceland.

What was your goal of the year in UEFA competition?

— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) December 27, 2015

Turkey rose out of the ashes thanks to 13 points in their last five matches. They needed to avoid defeat to Iceland, in case the Dutch beat the Czechs, and had an outside hope of finishing as the third-placed team with the best record in the nine qualifying groups if they won and Kazakhstan also beat Latvia.

And all of Turkey's dreams came true as Turkey won, the Dutch lost 3-2 against Czech Republic and Kazakhstan won 1-0 in Latvia to send the Turks to the finals for the fourth time.

Turkey finished with 18 points, ahead of the Netherlands with 13, while the Czech Republic won Group A with 22 points, two ahead of Iceland.

The best third-place team was decided by the points they obtained in matches against the first, second, fourth and fifth-placed teams in their group. Turkey drew twice with Latvia but beat Kazakhstan twice and the points they got from the Kazakhs meant they finished on 16 points in the best third-placed teams' table to beat Hungary by a point.

The Turks, who finished with 10 men after midfielder Gökhan Töre was shown a red card in the 77th minute, had to wait until the 89th minute for Inan to score from 25 meters in dramatic fashion to carry the country into the next stage of Euro 2016.