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After 36 competitive fixtures, the Euro 2016 group stages are over and the knockouts participants finalised. So which players have impressed over the opening three games?
Group A: Dimitri Payet – France
Although Payet is often deployed in the head of a creative 4-3-3 at West Ham in the No.10 role. He has shone brightly in the left-wing position in a more conservative counter-attacking French side.
Scoring a thunderous strike to get the party started against Romania as well as assisting fellow Premier League striker Olivier Giroud to give France a 2-1 win. He followed it up with another great finish against Albania.
Payet is quickly emerging onto the radars of Europe’s elite and is hotly tipped to be named the best player in the competition.
Group B: Gareth Bale – Wales
Bale has been quite the business at the Euro this summer, netting three goals in the group stage and leading The Dragons to first place in Group B.
Bale scored in all three group games – a 2-1 win against Slovakia, 3-0 win against Russia as well as a tricky free-kick in their 2-1 loss to rivals England.
Bale is Wales’ shining light and is expected to lead them as far into the competition as possible. He has a wonderful ability to exploit the space in behind defences, helped out by the passing of Aaron Ramsay and Joe Allen, terrific finishing inside and outside the box and he’s a free-kick specialist, what more do you want?
Bale is red hot and with the quality the Welsh have they may raise more eyebrows heading further into the competition.
Group C: Toni Kroos – Germany
Although he is not an exciting, flamboyant box-to-box attacking midfielder, Kroos anchors the German team exquisitely. He has one of the best passing accuracies for midfielders in the competition at 93 per cent along with a German team that relies heavily on possession; they boast the best percentage at an average of 65 per cent.
Kroos has little room to venture forward but pulls the strings with a patient tempo in the German side that enjoy playing on the break with players like Julian Draxler.
Although he doesn’t steal headlines, he is a pivotal part of the world champion’s setup as one of the competition favourites.
Group D: Alvaro Morata – Spain
Morata enters the round of 16 phase as top scorer of the competition along with Bale on three goals. A slow start saw him forget his shooting boots as a stubborn Petr Cech time and time again rejected him in a 1-0 win over the Czech Republic.
Head coach Vicente del Bosque kept his faith in the young Spaniard and was rewarded as he scored two goals in a 3-0 win against Turkey.
Spain failed to top the group, falling short to Croatia in a 2-1 loss on the last day, although Morata opened the scoring, he couldn’t prevent the heartbreak of Ivan Perisic’s 87th minute win.
His heroics for club Juventus had him courted by hometown club Real Madrid for some time but three goals in a major tournament may have just tipped the deal over the line as Real Madrid bought back the striker for €30 million.
Could he finally be the replacement for David Villa Spain have been craving?
Group E: Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini – Italy
Being labelled as the toughest defence at the Euro 2016 is a title that isn’t thrown around willy-nilly. Hadrian’s Wall? How about Antonio Conte’s Wall as the two brutes guard the chamber that is the net of Gigi Buffon.
Bonucci and Chiellini leaked only one goal in the group stage in an unfortunate loss to Ireland on the last day, for which they fielded a weakened team, where Chiellini was not present.
Deploying three central defenders, Italy’s ability to play the ball forwards, as shown with Bonucci’s mesmerising assist to Emmanuele Giaccherini against Belgium, complements their composure in defence but also their ability to execute quick shifts into attack.
Their ability to go forward complements their defensive capabilities as we saw against Sweden, holding off masses of attacks to eventually emerge 1-0 winners. The decisive goal started from a throw-in by, that’s right, Chiellini.
These two players are key to Italy progressing to the later stages and can hold off almost any attack.
Group F: Hannes Halldórsson – Iceland
Iceland, everyone’s second team, only missed out on topping the group ahead of Hungary on goal difference but did terrifically well to keep quiet a skilful Austria and star-studded Portugal.
One man who has been key to their success is the man between the sticks for Strákarnir okkar, Hannes Halldórsson. Halldórsson, 32, is one of the tallest keepers at the competition at 6’4″, and is owned by Dutch Eredivisie side NEC; he spent this season on loan at Norwegian first division team FK Bodø.
Halldórsson has been pivotal to their obdurate performances as he has made more saves than any keeper in the competition so far, clocking up an impressive 16. That’s averaging an astounding five saves per game. Iceland conceded one goal in each game, although succeeded in remaining undefeated.
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