Xavi Named Euro 2008 Player of the Tournament
Well, this is embarrassing. I did a quick rundown of Euro 2008 Player of the Tournament candidates last night, and there was one name I forgot: Xavi Hernández.
And guess who UEFA has named as player of the tournament this morning? That’s right: Xavi Hernández.
I’m pretty sure UEFA did this just to make me look bad. And it seems a slightly odd choice, perhaps influenced by being chosen so soon after the final?
But in a lot of ways Xavi makes perfect sense. There really wasn’t one outstanding, dominant player at Euro 2008. But there was some top notch teamwork, especially in Spain’s midfield.
Instead of trying to pick the player who stood out the most, as I did last night, seems UEFA have given their Player of the Tournament award to a man who symbolizes all that teamwork.
So as the man who made Spain’s midfield tick, Xavi deserves the prize. Lots of smart short passing that made Spain’s possession game possible, and some inch perfect through balls, like the one for Fernando Torres’ winner last night. “It was him who gave the team its tempo,” said Uefa technical director Andy Roxburgh. I’m not going to argue with him.
Well, maybe a little. I still stand by my original choice of Iker Casillas. Yes, Xavi had a good tournament, but there was at least one occasion (against Italy in the quarter-finals comes to mind) where he was replaced by Cesc Fabregas, and Cesc looked a lot more effective.
Meanwhile Casillas pulled out all kinds of great saves, and made zero blunders. There was never any danger of him being replaced by Pepe Reina for the final 30 minutes.
But as a representative of the kind of football that won the tournament, Xavi makes sense. So congratulations to him and to the whole Spanish squad for a great team performance.
UEFA also named a 23 man squad of the tournament, like so:
Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain), Edwin van der Sar (Holland); Jose Bosingwa (Portugal), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Carlos Marchena (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Carles Puyol (Spain), Yuri Zhirkov (Russia); Hamit Altintop (Turkey), Luka Modric (Croatia), Marcos Senna (Spain), Xavi (Spain), Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia), Michael Ballack (Germany), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Holland); Andrei Arshavin (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia), Fernando Torres (Spain), David Villa (Spain)
As a cule I’m biased, but I do think it was a very good choice – I think Marcos Senna deserved it more as he was a bit more consistent, but Xavi was still extremely vital, especially in the last two games and I would argue it was him not Torres who was the best player in the final. Cesc didn’t look as good when he started.
Posted from
Argentina
I think Iniesta was better than Xavi. I do think Fábregas would have got it, but the Catalan Kid only came off the bench to change matches. He’s got plenty of time to win one though.
How Philipp Lahm even got a sniff of the top team of the tournament, I will never know. Worst defender at the tournament. Responsible for both Turkish goals as well as Torres’s goal last night.
Posted from
Canada
I think Xavi was consistent throughout the tournament, and he was very good. Iniesta had a bad game against Italy, and he was good only in spurts, his inability to shot with his left was particularly frustrating against Germany. But Marcos Senna was outstanding, I think Xavi needs to recognize he was able to do alot more then he usually can do because he had Senna just behind him.
Posted from
United States
Xavi is the Maestro, the conductor of the orchestra. He creates the beautiful music or play that our players, La Roja execute. Bravo Xavi! Bravo!
Posted from
United States
any top 23 without ANY turks is null and void. cmon uefa.
oh wait altintop was there. i was hoping for hakan balta for lahm or even semih or nihat, but altintop was great
when do we get the daryl/chris/laurie/ian fantasy breakdown?
Nick, would you believe it was a 3-way tie? (I’m not going to tell you who the unlucky 4th was. You’ll have to wait.)
Posted from
United States
that sounds a lot less sketchy than a 4-way tie so i can believe it. otherwise i might think you guys had rigged the selection or something.
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It’s never the goalkeeper, Daryl. Look at the last World Cup–Gigi Buffon didn’t finish in the top three.
Posted from
United States