Uefa have chosen Barça's Xavi Hernandez best player of Euro 2008. After his superb performances throughout the tournament, especially in the semi-final and final I believe that he thoroughly deserves it. Congratulations Xavi, let's hope you can keep up the form for Barça next season. Uefa also named a list of the best 23 players which also includes Carles Puyol and Andres Iniesta, while there is no place for Cristiano Ronaldo. The 23 are: Casillas, Buffon, Van der Sar, Marchena, Puyol, Bosingwa, Pepe, Lahm, Zhirkov, Senna, Xavi, Zyryanov, Modric, Altintop, Fabregás, Iniesta, Ballack, Podolski, Sneijder, Villa, Torres, Arshavin, Pavlyuchenko.

A goal after 33minutes from Fernando Torres was enough to give Spain a thoroughly deserved victory in tonight's Euro 2008 final. A great through pass from Barça's Xavi Hernandez gave Torres the chance to show his speed as he outpaced Phillip Lahm to nick the ball skillfully over the advancing Jens Lehmann. It was fitting that Xavi and Torres should combine for the goal as they were the two best players on the pitch tonight.

Torres was a constant threat and he nearly put Spain ahead when he headed sergio Ramos's cross onto the base of the post after 22 minutes. Germany only really threatened in the first ten minutes but once Spain settled in their class began to show. In the second half Spain almost equalled the performance against Russia in the semi final and rarely looked threatened. Ramos, Inies...

A magnificent second half display from the Spanish team blew away Russia by three goals to nil and Spain must now be fancied to beat Germany in Sunday's final. Barça's Xavi Hernandez put Spain on the road to victory when he met Iniesta's cross to side foot the ball under the Russian keeper.

In the first half the Spanish defence led by a superb Carles Puyol kept Pavlyuchenko and Barça target Andrei Arshavin pretty quiet, and when Pavlyuchenko did get a shot in Casillas brilliantly got his fingertips to the ball to turn it round the post. Spain had to reorganise after David Villa was forced to come off injured in the 34th minute, but the readjustment worked well for Spain with Cesc Fabregas coming on to play a free role in midfield behind Fernando Torres.

Spain got the breakthrough five mi...

I have to confess I thought this game had Italy scrape a lucky win written all over it. So many tournaments in the past have seen Spain perform well in the early stages only to get knocked out at the quarter-final stage, usually with some sort of controversy involved, while the Italians have made an art of getting through to finals after receiving criticism during the group stage.

Today's game had all the signs that Italy would triumph. Spain had more possession, they played the more attractive football, but the Italians when they did break forward looked more likely to score. To be honest neither team had many good chances and the game must have seemed pretty dull for the neutral.

As the game went into extra time there was a brief spell when it seemed as if the game was going to...

Yet another upset in Euro 2008 tonight. The Dutch had finished top of the so called group of death and were fancied by many people to go on and win it. However, tonight they were totally outplayed and outrun by a superb Russian team. Andrei Arshavin was absolutely brilliant and gave the performace of the tournament so far: Txiki should make an offer for him tomorrow. 

Pavlyuchenko, who has been linked with Barça, was also very good and he put the Russians in front in the 56th minute when he turned in Semak's cross from the left. One weakness that the Russians seem to have is defending set-pieces and they were punished for it five minutes from the end of normal time when Van Nistlerooy headed home Sneijder's free kick.

In extra time Pavlyuchenko hit the bar with a cracking shot. Then in...

Turkey qualified for the semi finals of Euro 2008 after a thrilling finish to their quarter final match with Croatia. One of the game's main protagonists was ex-Barça goalie Rü?tü Reçber who was at fault when Croatia took the lead in the 119th minute, but after Turkey equalized with the last kick of the game, Rü?tü turned hero with the penalty save that put Turkey through.

For me Friday night is curry night which meant I only saw the first half at home before going out. Luckily for me, and unluckily for my friends, the game was on in the restaurant so I was able to follow the whole game while enjoying my chicken jalfreizi.

I thought Modric had a very good game for Croatia and in the first half he set up a great chance that Olic could only send against the crossbar from 6 yards. Croatia h...

Despite a good performance from Deco, Portugal offered a disappointing image as they went out 3-2 to Germany in tonight's exciting first quarter final. Germany who switched to a 4-5-1 formation went two goals up in the first half an hour. First Podolski made a great run down the left side before finding Schweinsteiger who had got goal side of the Portuguese defence. Then Klose made the most of poor defending at a free kick to head home the second.

Portugal pulled one back before half time when Nuno Gomes turned in a rebound after Lehmann blocked Cristiano Ronaldo's shot. but in the second half Portugal again paid the price for defending badly at a free kick, this time Ballack headed in after a subtle push on Ferreira went unseen by the referee.

Portugal substitute Postiga made it 3-2...

Just a short one for today, my computer has been having an off day and making life hard for me. Anyway, while I have finally got a connexion I'll give you a brief summary of the games today. For the first time I tried to watch both games at once (not two tellies, just flicking between two channels). Of Barça's players only Iniesta was playing for Spain although there was a chance to see a few ex-players as Pepe Reina, Fernando Navarro, Cesc Fabregas, Sergio Garcia and Dani Güiza all started for Spain. The Russia-Sweden game promised more excitement and I always love to watch Larsson play.

In the end it was the Russians who played the best football of the night scoring two splendidly worked team goals to win 2-0. Larsson had one fine flicked header hit the bar but Sweden with the oldest squ...

Eric Abidal and Thierry Henry have come in for a fair bit of criticism since signing for Barça last summer. Whether Barça are to blame or not I cannot say, but now playing for France they have both had poor tournaments as a lacklustre French team finished bottom of the Group C.

Abidal was moved to centre back to play alongside William Gallas but the decision proved to be extremely costly. After just four minutes a schoolboy error from Abidal allowed Luca Toni a shot on goal that went wide, but in the 24th minute Abidal again allowed Toni to get goalside and then a clumsy tackle from behind saw Italy win a penalty and Abidal sent off for preventing a clear goalscoring opportunity. Pirlo scored from the spot to make it 1-0.

With France down to ten men it was always going to be an uphill st...

Watching the Austria-Germany game this evening I got to trying to remember which Germans or Austrians have ever played for Barça. The only Germans I could think of were Bernd Schuster who I won't say any more about, and goalkeeper Robert Enke who made four appearances for Barça in 2002/3. As for Austrians I can only think of the great Hans Krankl who arrived in Barcelona in 1978 as Johan Cruyff's replacement.

Krankl was pichichi with 29 goals in his first season at the club and he also played in the historic European Cup Winners Cup Final against Fortuna Dusseldorf which Barça won 4-3 after extra time. If you've never seen the goals from that game watch them here. Krankl scores Barça's fou...