|
Xavi voted player of Euro 2008
30/06/2008 14:39 - (SA)
Vienna - Uefa has voted Xavi Hernandez player of the tournament after Spain's 1-0 victory over Germany in the European Championship final and selected nine of the Spanish players in the 23-member team of Euro 2008.
There was no place in the squad for Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese star who scored 42 goals for Manchester United last season and is a leading candidate for Fifa player of the year, after he failed to reproduce his best form.
Andy Roxburgh, the former Scotland coach who is head of Uefa's Technical Committee, said that Spain's superior technical ability at the June 7-29 championship had earned the title for Luis Aragones' team.
"We have chosen Xavi because he epitomises the Spanish style of play. He was extremely influential in the whole possession, passing and penetrating kind of game that Spain played," Roxburgh said on Monday, the day after the final in Vienna's Ernst Happel stadium.
Roxburgh explained that the nine-man technical committee, which also included former national team coaches such as Gerard Houllier and Roy Hodgson, did not include players from teams who were eliminated in group play, such as France.
Explaining Ronaldo's absence, Roxburgh said he was a member of an impressive Portugal team which reached the quarter-finals but then went out 3-2 to Germany. Ronaldo could have been included if the team had made it to the semi-finals and he had played well. But the only Portuguese players in the squad were defenders Jose Bosingwa and Pepe.
Runner-ups Germany, who reached their sixth Euro final but have not won an international title since the 1996 European Championship, had three players in the squad - defender Philipp Lahm, captain Michael Ballack and attacking midfielder Lukas Podolski, who scored three goals.
Only one player made it from the disappointing, defence-minded Italian team, which went out on penalties to Spain in the quarter-finals - goalkeeper and team captain Gianluigi Buffon, who kept out a penalty against Romania and made a standout save in Italy's 2-0 victory over France.
Russia, who were one of the surprises of the tournament in advancing to the semi-finals under Dutch coach Guus Hiddink, had four players in the squad, including strikers Roman Pavlyuchenko and Andrei Arshavin, the Zenit St Petersburg playmaker who helped his club win the Uefa Cup shortly before the championship. Arshavin missed Russia's first two group games because of suspension but his goals and passes helped the Russians beat Sweden and the Netherlands on the way to losing 3-0 to Spain in the semi-finals.
Turkey also made it to the semi-finals, losing 3-2 to Germany, and had one player in the squad, Hamit Altintop.
Squad:
Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain), Edwin Van der Sar (Netherlands).
Defenders: Jose Bosingwa (Portugal), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Carlos Marchena (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Carlos Puyol (Spain), Yury Zhirkov (Russia).
Midfielders: Hamit Altintop (Turkey), Michael Ballack (Germany), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Xavi Hernandez (Spain), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Luka Modric (Croatia), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Marcos Senna (Spain), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia).
Strikers: Andrei Arshavin (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia), Fernando Torres (Spain), David Villa (Spain).
- AP
|
