Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Spain dominate Team of the Tournament

The UEFA Technical Team has named its UEFA EURO 2008™ Team of the Tournament, with no fewer than nine Spanish players being picked in the final 23.

Team breakdown
The nine-strong group of experienced football technicians who have followed every game at the tournament decided the selection – and the success of Luis Aragonés's side was underlined by the fact nine Spain players made the cut, with the remainder of the squad comprising three players from runners-up Germany, four from Russia, two each from the Netherlands and Portugal and a single player representing Turkey, Croatia and Italy.

'Not about reputations'
UEFA technical director Andy Roxburgh said: "The Team of the Tournament is something we put into our technical report for our coaching colleagues. We give them pointers on the players that our technical experts have appreciated during this event. This team is very much self-contained in terms of the tournament – this is not about reputations. In fact there are only four players in here who were in our UEFA Champions League team of the competition. It's all very much about the performances in this competition. We haven't included anybody who was knocked out in the group phase."

UEFA EURO 2008™ Team of the Tournament
Goalkeepers:
Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain), Edwin van der Sar (Netherlands).

Defenders: Bosingwa (Portugal), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Carlos Marchena (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Carles Puyol (Spain), Yuri Zhirkov (Russia).

Midfielders: Hamit Altıntop (Turkey), Luka Modrić (Croatia), Marcos Senna (Spain), Xavi Hernández (Spain), Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia), Michael Ballack (Germany), Cesc Fàbregas (Spain), Andrés Iniesta (Spain), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands).

Forwards: Andrei Arshavin (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia), Fernando Torres (Spain), David Villa (Spain).

























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