Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo missed out on making UEFA's squad of the Euro 2008 tournament which climaxed on Sunday with Spain beating Germany 1-0.

Nine Spaniards make the 23-player squad — while Xavi was named player of the tournament — but UEFA technical director Andy Roxburgh insisted nothing should be read into the absence of Ronaldo from the list and it had nothing to do with his reputation as a prima donna.

"If Portugal had gone further (they lost 3-2 to Germany in the quarter-finals), he (Ronaldo) and Deco would have been in our squad," said the former Scotland coach.

"We don't pick them on reputation. He is a fantastic player. In any case one of the bettter matches I saw was between the Portugal A and Portugal B sides."

Two of Ronaldo's team-mates did make it in defenders Jose Bosingwa and Pepe.

Roxburgh said that the selection of the best player had been a close run thing.

"(Iker) Casillas, the Spanish goalkeeper, came very close in the voting (which is decided on by 9 technical experts)," he said.

"There is also (Carles) Puyol: What an attitude he has! He is the captain courageous of Barcelona, and he has the same courage for the national side.

"Obviously the winning team provides the best players."

Euro 2008 squad:

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

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

Midfielders: Hamit Altintop (Turkey), Luka Modric (Croatia), Marcos Senna (Spain), Xavi (Spain), Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia), Michael Ballack (Germany), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Holland).

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

AFP

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