Spanish midfielder Rodri was named the best player of the European Football Championship in Germany. The award for the best young player went to his teammate Lamine Yamal, who just turned 17 on Saturday.
The 28-year-old Rodri played six of the seven games in the tournament, scored one goal and had a pass success rate of almost 93 percent. In today’s winning final once morest England (2:1), he was substituted following the first half due to injury.
“Individual awards are nice, but the main thing is the team. This is probably the biggest day of my career,” foreign media quoted Rodri as saying. “We made history, we beat four former world champions (Italy, Germany, France and England) at the tournament. We went through the toughest draw and that speaks to the mental strength of this team,” added the more defensively tuned Manchester City midfielder.
Yamal broke several records at the championship, for example, he became the youngest debutant, scorer and winner of the tournament. The Barcelona striker recorded a goal and four assists at the Euros.
Both major individual awards were selected by a team of 12 UEFA technical observers. Among them were mainly famous current or former coaches – for example, Fabio Capello, Rafael Benítez, Frank de Boer or David Moyes, who led the Czech national team of Tomáš Souček and Vladimír Coufal in England’s West Ham last season.
Another Spaniard, Nico Williams, who opened the scoring at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, was voted the best player of today’s final. Together with the aforementioned teammates, he helped his country to a record fourth triumph at the European Championship, breaking away from Germany.
