Euro 2008: Best And Worst Of The Tournament

Three goals for the burly striker, and he could have scored 10 from the chances he had. That is not a criticism though, as much of those chances were created by his outstanding movement. He is tall but still has incredible mobility and skill and a ferocious shot. Likely to be in high demand around Europe.

Striker: Lukas Podolski (Germany) Without him Germany may well have gone home early, as he was their only spark in the group stage. Has played wide for much of the tournament, but such is his hard-running and shooting ability, he has still impressed.

Subs

David Villa (Spain) Top scorer thanks to his opening game hat-trick and dramatic late goal versus Sweden. He has been pretty quiet since and will miss the final with injury.

Luka Modric (Croatia) Great dribbler and passer who Spurs' fans will be looking forward to seeing up close.

Phillip Lahm (Germany) he struggled in an awful Germany defence, but still found time to show his class with a wonderful semi-final winner.

Iker Casillas (Spain) If Buffon is the number one, then this guy is not far behind. Superb shot-stopper.

Mehmet Topal (Turkey) After playing holding midfield against Croatia he switched to centre back against Germany and excelled at both. At just 22, he is likely to be the next big Turkish export.

 

And the worst...

Manager: Raymond Domenech (France) Who else? Managed to make a brilliant squad look terrible with strange choices, tactics, and general confusion.

Goalkeeper: Petr Cech (Czech Republic) Used to be one of the best in the world, but he hasn't looked the same since returning from a head injury in 2006 and followed up Chelsea howlers with a disastrous one for his country.

Defence: Marco Materazzi (Italy), Eric Abidal (France), Marcell Jansen (Germany), Per Mertesacker (Germany) Materazzi was so bad against Holland that he didn't get picked again despite playing and scoring in the last World Cup Final, Abidal was awful at left back and even worse at centre back, while Jansen and Mertesacker have taken bad German defending to whole new levels. Efficient and reliable this lot are not.

Midfield: Gennaro Gattuso (Italy), Florent Malouda (France), Rene Aufhauser (Austria),  Andreas Ivanschitz (Austria) Gattuso was dire in game one, average in game two, and although he perked up a bit in game three he also got himself stupidly booked with his usual big gob, meaning that he missed the quarter-finals after Pirlo was already ruled out as well. Great leadership that is.

Malouda carried on where his Chelsea season had left off, with a complete lack of confidence and general passing of the buck to anyone in his vicinity. Oh, and of course he dived a bit.

Austria had waited 18 years for a major tournament appearance, and good old Rene Aufhauser takes two minutes to give away a ludicrous penalty in game one. Nice one Rene.

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