Some Interesting Facts/Stats from Euro 2008, Some interesting and others not so interesting... But guess what they will stay forever..


* Golden Boot: Spain’s David Villa with Four goals.

* Player of the Tournament: Spain's Xavi Hernandez is UEFA's official Player of the Tournament for driving his to victory in Euro 2008.


Statistics:

Goals:

Total Goals: 77 matching exactly that of four years beforehand in Portugal.

* Minutes played-to-goals: Hakan Yakin of Switzerland had the lowest ‘minutes played-to-goals’ ratio (73) among players who played over 100 minutes. The lowest overall was by Vaclav Sverkos of Czech Republic (38), who played only 38 minutes in the entire group stage despite scoring the winner against the Swiss.

* Shots/goal ratio: Sverkos also finished with the lowest shots/goal ratio, as his only shot in the tournament resulted in a goal! The highest ratio for a player with at least 10 shots is quite predictably Luca Toni, who had 16 shots and no goals to show for them.

* Goals by Free Kicks: Only 2 goals were scored directly by free kicks in the entire tournament. Out of the two, one was a deflected goal scored by Daniele De Rossi, which leaves only one classic free kick goal at the Euros this time. It was Michael Ballack, of course, who converted it against Austria.

* Goals from Corners: Only 2 goals were scored directly from corners (flick-ons not counted) out of all the 31 matches. One by Dirk Kuyt against France, and the other by Libor Sionko against Portugal.

* Own Goals: To the credit of all the defenders and goalkeepers at Euro 2008, they made each goal well-earned. In other words, the 31 matches played at the European Championships consisted of exactly zero own goals.


Fouls:

* Ballack also holds the distinction of committing the most fouls in the tournament. He romped home with the prize with 22 fouls, followed distantly by David Villa (!) with 15.

* Spain also finished first in the most fouls committed list, with 114 fouls in all. However, the fouls/match ratio is highest for Poland, at 22.33.

Passing & Assists:

* Assits: Cesc Fabregas and Turkey’s Hamit Altintop ended the tournament as joint leaders in the assists chart. Both had 3 assists, but Fabregas played for a total of 352 minutes compared to Altintop’s 487 minutes.

* Passing: Spain ended as the most frequent passers of the ball in the tournament, with a quite astonishing match average of 569.17! Netherlands came close, with an average of 541.

* Best Right Backs: The two best right backs at the Euros top the list when it comes to individual passes made. Philipp Lahm tops the charts with 359, and Sergio Ramos follows with 337.

* Passes/Minute: When it comes to passes-per-minute, Cesc Fabregas and Xavi, understandably, lead the pack. Fabregas made 0.86 passes/minute, compared to player of the tournament Xavi’s 0.84.


From Articles at : Goal.com