The best players of Euro 2004

I did see Puck's invitation to me to make comments on the 03/04 thread, but (as I let him know by PM) I felt I couldn't add a huge amount of use in that one, but in this one for a specific tournament I can add my vague memories of my own ideas for Team of the Tournament at the time etc.

Somehow my full XI (I did choose one I remember) is not so clear as for some of the 90s tournaments (1994 in particular) and maybe even the 2002 World Cup either, but I don't think I deviated a huge amount from the kind of selections in comme's opening post anyway. I think I had it as a toss up between Rooney and Baros actually for Player of the Tournament, and would have had them paired up front in my XI on that basis. I feel fairly sure I had Dellas and Carvalho as CBs too, and I think I'll probably have had both Rosicky and Nedved in the midfield.

I do remember that the Czech Republic vs the Netherlands was a great game, and actually both goalkeepers Van der Sar and Cech played very well, making several saves I think.

I think Maniche might have been in my TOTT XI too, or at least I felt he'd had a very good tournament.

 

Having now looked again at more of Puck's comments on the 03/04 thread, I am reminded that I did think Lahm played well in Euro 2004 actually.

I'm not sure I gave him a spot in my XI to be honest though, but the choice of full-backs seems to have particularly escaped my memory (I think I picked either a 4-4-2 or a diamond like the Czech Republic played).

Again, since I'm fairly sure I had Maniche in my XI, I don't think I had Galasek too, but I seem to think he did well enough to be in contention for an inclusion in a wider recognition, as the player at the base of the Czech midfield.

I'm not sure I had Zagorakis in (I feel probably I didn't) but I think I could understand to an extent why he was heralded afterwards and picked up the Player of the Tournament award. I knew him from his time at Leicester of course (more than I knew Dellas who'd also been in English football at Sheffield United wasn't it?).

 

Sorry, where are these ratings from? They only played at phases well, and some players varied in how noticeable they were, but no Holland player is better than a 4.70???

kicker show these as the best (Robben and maybe Davids should be higher but the rest looks about fine - hard tournament to rate the players though):
https://www.kicker.de/niederlande/kader/europameisterschaft/2004


If I'm thinking about which ones had really the best tournament of their career I think this is only true for Seedorf (maybe euro 1996 too, but overshadowed by the Swiss substitution and penalty miss), with for example a great shot on the crossbar vs Czech Republic. Excluding the wingers, kicker shows him among the five best midfielders of the tournament. All the other orange players had tournaments where they were better or about equally good.

Of all players around Rooney is the most obvious name who had the best tournament of his career, but also think/thought he was overhyped a bit based on doing great against Swiss and Croatia rather than Portugal or France (against France he had also his flashes though, see link below). Although one of the better players this tournament, think it's hard to see him as a real candidate for the best overall.
http://www.thefalsenine.co.uk/2014/02/19/truth-wayne-rooney/
(I don't agree with all the parts in this take, but the part on the France game is spot on)


Here a Belgian forum at the time (who didn't qualify) with various teams selected:
https://www.9lives.be/forum/archive/index.php/t-230658.html


Here is one by the Daily Telegraph:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2382330/Columnists-Euro-XIs.html

Gary Lineker's XI
4-4-2
Van Der Sar Holland
Seitaridis Greece
Ricardo Carvalho Portugal
Dellas Greece
Cole England
Figo Portugal
Ballack Germany
Maniche Portugal
Nedved Czech Rep
Rooney England
Van Nistelrooy Holland
James Mossop's XI
4-4-2
Cech Czech Rep
Thuram France
Ricardo Carvalho Portugal
Dellas Greece
Cole England
Figo Portugal
Maniche Portugal
Zagorakis Greece
Robben Holland
Baros Czech Rep
Rooney England
Patrick Barclay's XI
4-4-2 (Diamond midfield)
Nikopolidis Greece
Seitaridis Greece
Ricardo Carvalho Portugal
Dellas Greece
Cole England
Maniche Portugal
Ronaldo Portugal
Petrov Bulgaria
Larsson Sweden
Rooney England
Baros Czech Rep
Gerard Houllier' XI
4-4-2 (Diamond midfield)
Cech Czech Rep
Miguel Portugal
Ricardo Carvalho Portugal
Campbell England
Cole England
Maniche Portugal
Figo Portugal
Ronaldo Portugal
Rooney England
Van Nistelrooy Holland
Baros Czech Rep
Roy Collins' XI
4-4-1-1
Cech Czech Rep
Seitaridis Greece
Ricardo Carvalho Portugal
Dellas Greece
Cole England
Ronaldo Portugal
Maniche Portugal
Seedorf Holland
Nedved Czech Rep
Rooney England
Baros Czech Rep


I saw in The Times archive VdS and Robben received a good grade (7) for the Sweden match. VdS saved the penalty from captain Mellberg of course, just as he saved the penalty of captain Maldini four years earlier.

The recent 'VI special' (I've received it now) has a few interesting stats for this tournament. Obviously the average level of opposition matters, the style of the team, and substitutions bring down averages of the players (it's on per game, rather than 90 minutes).

Topscorers: Barros 5; Rooney and Van Nistelrooij 4
Assists: Poborsky and Robben 3
Shots on goal per game: Henry 2.8; Van Nistelrooij and Kuranyi 2.0
Successful dribbles per game: Figo 4.0; Joaquin 3.5; Overmars 3.3
Chances created per game: Poborsky and Zidane 3.8; Vicente 3.7; Robben 3.3
Saves percentage: Isaksson, Buffon, Nikopolidis
Pass accuracy: Nesta 94.1; Etxeberria 92.9; Frings 90.3 (Stam 87.3)
Individual duels % won: Wörns 78.6; Silvestre 74.3; Hamann 73.3 (Bouma 69.2)
Winning possession per game: Vogel and Nesta 10; Malafeev 9; Stam 8

To be included a player had to play at least 2 games, 50 passes and 25 duels at a minimum.

Also noteworthy is Ibrahimovic having the highest fouls per match.

 

Pretty good calls (as often/always with you). Yes Ricardo Carvalho and Nedved are likely also among those who had their career best tournament.

 

I log out for today but this is also good stuff:

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/awards.52353/
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/euro-2004-xi-so-far.51262/

Players who play well in the group stage while crashing out are always tricky (Ballack and possibly Nesta in this tournament, Sneijder in 2012 for example)

 

What was the newspaper source of the blog?

I'll think about the top players later myself. Cristiano Ronaldo his best performance was against England I think, not coincidentally actually completing the full game there (kicker has him on 3/6 in every match; never one of the best of his team, never one of the worst). Henrik Larsson might be among the most underrated ones of this tournament (in productivity/effectiveness he certainly was among the best).



RvN forced Portugal's own goal in the semi final, but think there is an argument his all-round game was at euro 2008 better (and he scored/created goals like in the quarter final too; scoring against Italy like he did against Germany in this one); he was about equally good/better in other tournaments.

Had Nedved not been injured/tired in the semi final, he could have been the number one of the tournament. Zidane interchanged the enormously brilliant matches/moments/phases with the mundane stuff (on vs England: "more like the man of 15 minutes rather than man of the match" - which doesn't count for nothing).

I saw Deco (like Pires, Cocu) was regularly mentioned among the worst players of the tournament but I need to check this. The statistics across all his euro tournaments don't say so.

 

Can you show where those are mentioned?

Saw a while ago before the euros you made this list:
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/best-players-you-have-seen-in-the-flesh.97143/

Had already heard Cole made a good impression live.
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/t...ver-across-history.385412/page-9#post-9218699

Where there also Holland players who looked fine live? The team only played well in spurts I'd say and in the semi final they were a bit tired against the host (Portugal is really the bogey team) and F. de Boer was also really missed when he got out injured (just as in euro 1996).

 

Here some stats where he features a few times. There are some differences with OPTA and perhaps not fully reliable, but he noteworthy scores high among fouls and passes made. He played almost all minutes of course.

http://tv5.espn.com/espn/wire/_/section/soccer/id/1834551
https://futbal.pravda.sk/me-2004/clanok/121991-baros-kralom-strelcov/
https://satelitsport.estranky.cz/clanky/statistika-me-2004.html
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=3576722
https://www.dhnet.be/archive/eurostats-51b8292ae4b0de6db99fd946

Maybe.

Kicker despite the hype had him on a 3.5/6 against France. (which is in the middle of 'sufficient' and 'average')

Football ratings shows him on a 6.5/10 against France. That feels like too low for me, to be honest (7 or 7.5 would suit better).

"At Euro 2004, Rooney scored with 66.7% of his shots. From World Cup 2006 onwards, that rate dropped to 6.4% in major tournaments."
https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/53-goals-just-one-world-cup-wayne-rooneys-england-career-opta-stats
https://www.football365.com/news/wayne-rooneys-england-career-in-numbers


Also noteworthy is that for Placar in the euro 2004 preview only Spain, France, Germany, England and Italy exist as a football country, plus hosts Portugal (would be great to beat Brazil again at the World Cup!). The rest doesn't matter.
https://books.google.com/books?id=x...is AND figo&hl=nl&pg=PA58#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

I also saw him live in the past, but just on that I wouldn't be able to tell whether he was better or worse than Bergkamp, Van Bronckhorst or Van Bommel to name a few others who made a sound and fairly balanced/calibrated impression on me (MvB was a good passer live - I saw a similar comment by the guy who made the soccer-europe website halfway the 2000s decade about a live impression: "his leadership ability and passing range is certainly great").

I also see there are more Wales players (three) than the two England players in, and most of all four Germans. When searching that comment back today I also saw this one from 2016: "Things about best players you have seen in the flesh I always find slightly strange. I've seen Messi, Cristiano, Xavi, Ronaldinho etc and none of them particularly blew me away in the flesh."

I've seen his compilation of this game now and also the compilations of all his other games.

I think Ashley Cole did well here but also (still) think this is possibly Cristiano his best match. Maybe the match against Russia qualifies too. (with his only real assist in the tournament; the other was just a sideways pass for a Maniche long range shot; his two goals in the tournament were both headers from a corner kick)

Although the match went to extra time and penalties, I think it is illustrative the compilation of this game is far longer as the ones for all other matches. It is one of the two he completed. Against Spain he sort of completed his match too (86 minutes) but the video is typically far shorter in length.

- I think the level of opposition/defense counts for something.
- Completing the match (or almost completing) counts for something too.
- I think Ashley Cole was often tested to the limit. Cole did well but he needed everything he could use. Plus sometimes help from his other defenders.
- I think he was sharper and better in his decision making as in other games, like Spain.
- I think his crossing against Greece in the group stage was woeful for example. The continuation after a move was regularly quite bad in a few matches. Against Spain and other opponents he has a few needless shots.
- I think against Netherlands he didn't have the same sharpness and Figo was really great on the other wing.

I don't think I'm 100% certain or 100% correct here but I remembered it as a game where I wasn't 'annoyed' at things (like: bad crossing, poor continuation, poor decision, poor touch, needless shots) and it looked like he was testing and occupying defenders. What do you see as his best matches?

All in all I'd have him among the better players of the tournament too (relative to playing time), but it's hard too to see him as a real candidate for top spot.

One English player who actually has a very strong case for player of tournament is Gascoigne in 1990 in my mind. The player with the most dribbles, most created chances of the tournament, among others (main downside is 0 goals in the tournament and 2 assists vs Belgium, Egypt).

 

>> this match for example

https://www.voetbalstats.nl/opstelnedxi.php?wid=558

Oh wait, I see now that last page actually doesn't belong to the preview, but is just an overview of the 'major' leagues with then Portugal added because of the linguistic/cultural ties I presume, and they had the European club champion.

 

Houllier was part of the technical commission making the all-star teams and picking the player of the tournament.

"The EURO technical study group comprises eight members: Roy Hodgson, Gerard Houllier, Anghel Iordanescu, György Mezey, Holger Osieck, Jozef Venglos, Berti Vogts and Andy Roxburgh. Each of these cast one vote for the Player of the Tournament, and the ninth vote came from euro2004.com."

Now we also know where the high representation of England and Germany comes from. While in the meantime for example no Italian player is in.

Netherlands typically is the only euro semi finalist since 1980 with only one player (RvN) in the all star squad... (Netherlands 2014 the only World Cup semi finalist in history with no player at all... in 2010 only one...)

 

These were the players with the most official man of the match awards by the same technical committee:

Milan Baroš (Czech Republic), Michael Ballack (Germany), Wayne Rooney (England), Ruud van Nistelrooy (Netherlands), Theo Zagaorakis (Greece), Zinédine Zidane (France) - all on two.

(four years later it was Arshavin, Sneijder and Villa)

Roughly the list looks about right.

What do you think of John Terry in this tournament? Somewhere in the archives I read an article stating the English backline had without Ferdinand not enough quality on the ball. Peculiarly, almost directly after the tournament Eriksson preferred a Terry and Ferdinand partnership, and demoted Campbell.

Milan Baros definitely should be among the best of the tournament, with his important goals and with his mobility on the ball he was a nuisance for the Holland and German defenses (Stam did okay to twice touch the ball away from him, but he adjusted quickly and then provided Koller). He has also two KO stage goals (Charisteas the only to do the same). Imho he really should be up there and those two KO stage goals in a MOTM performance, the movement and goals against NED and GER defenses count for something. On an accumulative base he ranks high.

What was Cristiano Ronaldo his best game?

What makes Cech edge it above Nikopolidis, VdS and the others?

What did Lampard do that Zidane didn't? One of Zidane's goals was a penalty of course, but in terms of involvement in general play there is a difference.

In what way was Campbell markedly better as Stam? (to play the devil's advocate: Bouma vs Terry as partner in defense). As said above, they didn't play consistently well and many players varied in level, but can also think of a few other semi finalists and finalists of recent years where that applies.

Maniche vs Karagounis vs Zagorakis? How to separate those?

What did you make of Ibrahimovic and Henry?

 

His commentary:

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

In goal Edwin van der Sar had a tremendous tournament, not just because he saved a crucial penalty against Sweden but because of all the other saves he made. At right-back, I went for Giourkas Seitaridis from Greece, who has had a consistent and very strong championship. For the left-back I went for Ashley Cole from England. Even if they went out earlier than expected I think he had a tremendous tournament. Looking at the England team he was one of the biggest surprises.

Central defence
Of the two centre-backs, the first is Ricardo Carvalho. He had a great season for FC Porto but the way he came into the team after a bad start for Portugal and the way he has played until now is outstanding. The second centre-back was Jaap Stam - I didn't know whether to pick him or Traianos Dellas but I went with Stam because the performances he showed were very consistent and the strikers he was up against hardly saw the ball basically.

Figo selected
In midfield, I could have put four from Portugal but that would have been too much. On the right, I had to pick Luís Figo, the leader of the Portuguese side, who has grown in this tournament and got stronger and stronger. He digested his substitution against England and then showed his real quality in the semi-final against the Netherlands.

Leadership qualities
This was the time for the 'golden generation' to leave their mark and Figo knows that. The moment he was under pressure with a lot being said in the press about him and [Luiz Felipe] Scolari, he stepped up - this is the sign of a leader, of a world-class player.

Ronaldo tricks
In central midfield I have Theodoros Zagorakis from Greece as he is the leader of that group. The other player there is the Czech Republic's captain Pavel Nedved, who really put his mark on this tournament before his unfortunate injury in the semi-final. On the left, meanwhile, is Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been really inspired. He is fun to watch with his pace, his technique and his tricks. He is just playing like you'd play in the street.

Baroš and Rooney
Up front, Czech striker Milan Baroš had an outstanding tournament and scored five goals. Wayne Rooney, meanwhile, was as an inspiration for England. He is 18 years old but he just went out there and played like he'd been around for ever, with no fear. He is very strong physically, he's dynamic and he can go on long runs. The other option was Ruud van Nistelrooij, who also scored four goals, but I think Rooney deserved it because of how he fitted into the whole team.

Final thoughts
Van Nistelrooij scored four goals but he looked to me isolated from the rest of the Netherlands team, he never really got the support he needed. It's a shame as they have so many marvellous players but they couldn't support him the way he gets supported at Manchester United FC. As for my coach of the tournament, finally, it would have to be one of the guys who made it all the way to the final - Scolari or Otto Rehhagel.

https://web.archive.org/web/2004070...004.com/Features/Kind=2048/newsId=204886.html
https://es.uefa.com/insideuefa/news/newsid=204886.html

 

I don't see a German player in the all-star team either. Both Italy and Germany didn't make the QF, that likely got something to do with it. Sometimes this may not matter. I recall Neded playing extraordinary in 2000 and Czech Rep. not reaching QF. I think he was in the (some?) all-star team (?) though I'm not sure.

Speaking of Nedved, I think he was probably my 'favourite' player of that tournament.

 

See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_European_Championship_awards

Yes he was among the more entertaining ones.

 

Did absolutely nothing for 90mins against an England side famously lacking any form of holding midfielder as France were outplayed. Admittedly lovely free-kick, and preparing for a penalty by vomiting on the pitch is at least innovative.

— Michael Cox (@Zonal_Marking) April 4, 2020

Possibly true. Who was the last Ballon d’Or winner who didn’t have a good name?

— Michael Cox (@Zonal_Marking) April 5, 2020