Spain players dominate Team of Euro 2008

VIENNA, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The UEFA Technical Team has named its UEFA Euro 2008 Team of the Tournament here on Monday, with no fewer than nine Spanish players being named in the final 23.

The nine-strong group of experienced football technicians who have followed every game at the tournament decided the final selection.

The success of Luis Aragones' side was underlined by the fact that nine Spain players made the final cut, with the remainder of the squad comprising three players from beaten finalists Germany, four from Russia, two each from the Netherlands and Portugal and a single player representing Turkey, Croatia and Italy.

UEFA Technical Director Andy Roxburgh commented on the roster and said: "The Team of the Tournament is something which we put into our technical report for our coaching colleagues. We give them pointers on the players that our technical experts have appreciated during this event.

"This team is very much self-contained in terms of the tournament - this is not about reputations. In fact there are only four players in here who were in our UEFA Champions League team of the competition."

"It's all very much about the performances in this competition. We haven't included anybody who was knocked out in the group phase," he added.

Following are the squad named by UEFA as the Euro 2008 Team of the Tournament:

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain), Edwin van der Sar (Netherlands)

Defenders: Bosingwa (Portugal), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Carlos Marchena (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Carles Puyol (Spain), Yuri Zhirkov (Russia)

Midfielders: Hamit Alt?ntop (Turkey), Luka Modri? (Croatia), Marcos Senna (Spain), Xavi Hern ndez (Spain), Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia), Michael Ballack (Germany), Cesc Fbregas (Spain), Andrs Iniesta (Spain), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands)

Forwards: Andrei Arshavin (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia),Fernando Torres (Spain), David Villa (Spain)