Sneijder
Altintop
Arshavin
Modric
Ballack
Schweinsteiger
Casillas
Senna
Villa
Puyol

So that'll be a goal and assist each tonight for Philip Lahm and Cesc Fabregas.

So that's 7 midfielders, 1 keeper, 1 striker and 1 defender then.

In fairness, Fabregas's tournament so far consists of 55 very good minutes against Russia and not a whole lot else.

Lahm should be on there but did admittedly have a woeful game against Turkey, despite his great goal.

I'm not really sure what Hamit Altintop did, other than make it very clear that he didn't want to play at right-back in the first few games and then have a half decent game in midfield, against Germany.

Seems like they thought 'well, we'd better have one of the Turkish players' and picked the first one they could think of.

I've thought Ballack has been pretty wretched on the whole.

If Germany win - Schweinsteiger
If Spain win - Casillas

Schweinsteiger's been the dog's bollocks for Germany, I doubt they'd have got very far without him.

Schweinsteiger resembled a headless chicken more than a pig climber for much of the group stages, culminating in his red for twattishness, but has come back a rather more controlled and massively more effective player.

Ballack is getting credit for being the emotional leader of a team that looked as if it was becoming unTeutonically fragile, and for that free kick against Turkey.

Altintop is bizarre. He wouldn't be among my top three Turks.

Agree, Nihat and Arda were the Turks best players by a mile.

Altintop is bizarre. He wouldn't be among my top three Turks

He wouldn't make my top five - I'd have Nihat, Mehmet Aurelio, Semih, Servet and Arda on the list before Hamit - maybe it's because he's the Turkish player with the most famous employer?

And Ballack's been poor.

Xavi has been named player of the tournament, despite not being on UEFA's shortlist. Similarly, Schweinsteiger is on the shortlist, but not in the team of the tournament. Er...

Full UEFA team of the tournament:

Goalkeepers: Buffon, Casillas, van der Sar

Defenders: Bosingwa, Lahm, Marchena, Pepe, Puyol, Zhirkov

Midfielders: Hamit Altintop, Modric, Senna, Xavi, Zyryanov

Attacking Midfielders: Ballack, Fabregas, Iniesta, Podolski, Sneijder

Forwards: Arshavin, Pavlyuchenko, Torres, Villa

Some of those players actually played very well, but as is always the case with these things from UEFA, there's way too much starfucking going on.

blameless wrote:

QUOTE:
Xavi has been named player of the tournament, despite not being on UEFA's shortlist. Similarly, Schweinsteiger is on the shortlist, but not in the team of the tournament. Er...

Full UEFA team of the tournament:

Goalkeepers: Buffon, Casillas, van der Sar

Defenders: Bosingwa, Lahm, Marchena, Pepe, Puyol, Zhirkov

Midfielders: Hamit Altintop, Modric, Senna, Xavi, Zyryanov

Attacking Midfielders: Ballack, Fabregas, Iniesta, Podolski, Sneijder

Forwards: Arshavin, Pavlyuchenko, Torres, Villa

Some of those players actually played very well, but as is always the case with these things from UEFA, there's way too much starfucking going on.

XAVI was the right choice. Though there was no one who really properly stood out.

ALTINTOP was excellent in the game against Germany but in the other games just okay.

Lahm should not be in there. Ramos should.

Ballack deserves his place there. He was always trying to get things ticking and drive them on his emperor like fashion. Not sure what the hell Fabregas is doing there. Made some good cameo appearances off the bench but Iniesta/Silva both deserved a mention ahead of him.

Can't complain about the forwards.

I'm really happy for Xavi. I think he's consistently one of Barca's most influential players, but he never really gets much attention.

I would think that Schwinsteiger is more deserving of a place than Ballack, but I suppose he really only started to impress against Portugal.

I shouldn't think getting a red card helped Pig-boy's cause. I think cards and injuries might have affected the Turkish selection too, Altintop played in all matches didn't he? While, my personal favourite Servet, for instance, didn't make it out of the group stage.

I also wonder why Fabregas was picked. Podolski too seemed to disappear in the tournament's latter stages.

My team of tournament in 4-1-3-2 formation

Casillas

Ramos
Puyol
Marchena
Zherkov

Senna

Iniesta
Modric
Sneijder

Arshavin
Villa