• Barcelona midfielder named No1 by readers, writers and Uefa
• Andrea Pirlo and Cristiano Ronaldo share best match score
And so the brilliant Andrés Iniesta has been named the best player at Euro 2012, four years after his fellow Spain and Barcelona midfielder Xavi won the award in Switzerland and Austria. Uefa has been criticised for many things during this tournament – fining Nicklas Bendtner more for wearing a pair of sponsored briefs than it fined various football associations for the racist behaviour of their fans, proposing that in 2020 the tournament could be hosted by 12 or 13 cities across the continent, to name just two – but it seems like we're all in agreement that it has judged this decision correctly.
Half of our very own writers have chosen Iniesta as their player of the tournament, with Italy's Andrea Pirlo a close second. Meanwhile you, the readers, have been voting with your fingers after every match, dishing out player ratings with rare abandon. It couldn't have been much closer for the best player verdict, but Iniesta (average rating 7.60) pipped Pirlo (7.50) by one tenth of a mark.
Pirlo shares the honour of best individual match performance with Cristiano Ronaldo, the former getting a mark of 8.80 for his exhibition of passing against England, the latter for his demolition job on Holland. But despite the sporadic brilliance of Ronaldo in Poland and Ukraine, he misses out on the readers' first XI because of his inept displays against Germany (5.50) and Denmark (3.90).
The readers' XI in full (4-3-2-1)
Iker Casillas (Spain) 7.28
Federico Balzaretti (Italy) 6.78
Mats Hummels (Germany) 7.26
Daniel Agger (Denmark) 7.49
Jordi Alba (Spain) 7.11
Andrea Pirlo (Italy) 7.50
Sami Khedira (Germany) 7.18
Luka Modric (Croatia) 7.13
Mesut Ozil (Germany) 7.06
Andrés Iniesta (Spain) 7.60
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden) 7.40
Right-back is the only position in which no player averaged above 7. Balzaretti is therefore selected despite being unable to make the Italy starting XI for the final, and emerging on the left when he was brought on in the second half against Spain. Indeed, Uefa's official 23-man squad for the tournament does not contain one right-back among the six defenders, opting for three left-backs instead – Jordi Alba, Fábio Coentrão and Philipp Lahm.
The two best centre-halves in the competition, according to our readers, were Mats Hummels and Daniel Agger, but they fail to receive recognition from Uefa, as does Luka Modric. Steven Gerrard is the lone Englishman in Uefa's squad, and the player ratings also make him the best player on display for Roy Hodgson's team.
Uefa's 23-man squad in full
(readers' average ratings follow the names)
Goalkeepers Buffon (Italy) 7.10, Casillas (Spain) 7.28, Neuer (Germany) 7.06.
Defenders Piqué (Spain) 6.55, Coentrão (Portugal) 7.06, Lahm (Germany) 6.80, Pepe (Portugal) 6.86, Ramos (Spain) 6.82, Alba (Spain) 7.11.
Midfielders De Rossi (Italy) 6.80, Gerrard (England) 6.80, Xavi (Spain) 6.98, Iniesta (Spain) 7.60, Khedira (Germany) 7.18, Busquets (Spain) 6.47, Ozil (Germany) 7.06, Pirlo (Italy) 7.50, Xabi Alonso (Spain) 6.90.
Forwards Balotelli (Italy) 6.60, Fábregas (Spain) 7.02, Ronaldo (Portugal) 6.38, Ibrahimovic (Sweden) 7.40, Silva (Spain) 6.70. Read More
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