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Xavi is player of the tournament

— Photo: AFP

Xavi Hernandez.

VIENNA: UEFA voted Xavi Hernandez player of the tournament 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 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 to 29 championship had earned the title for Luis Aragones’s team.

Influential

“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 quarterfinals but then went out 3-2 to Germany. Ronaldo could have been included if the team had made it to the semifinals and he had played well. But, the only Portuguese players in the squad were defenders Jose Bosingwa and Pepe.

Runner-up Germany, which made its sixth Euro final but has 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-oriented Italian team, which went out on penalties to Spain in the quarterfinals — goalkeeper and captain Gianluigi Buffon, who kept out a penalty against Romania and made an outstanding save in Italy’s 2-0 victory over France.

Russian presence

Russia, which was one of the surprises of the tournament in advancing to the semifinals 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 before it lost to Spain in the semifinals.

Turkey also made it to the semifinals, losing 3-2 to Germany, and had one player in the squad, Hamit Altintop.

The squad:

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain) and Edwin Van der Sar (Netherlands).

Defenders: Jose Bosingwa (Portugal), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Carlos Marchena (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Carlos Puyol (Spain) and 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) and Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia).

Strikers: Andrei Arshavin (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia), Fernando Torres (Spain) and David Villa (Spain). — AP

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