Newcastle United's Anthony Gordon has been named in the European Under-21s Championship Team of the Tournament after an impressive tournament. The 22-year-old, who joined the Magpies from Everton in January, picked up the Player of the Tournament award following England U21s win over Spain.
The Young Lions held their nerve to edge past Spain and win the tie courtesy of a deflected Cole Palmer free-kick credited to Curtis Jones. Gordon was among the standout performers for Lee Carsley's side on route to the final and was handed UEFA's Player of the Tournament award ahead of the trophy lift.
Since then, he's been named alongside five more England players in the Team of the Tournament, with the remaining four players coming from Spain. Gordon operated in a central striking role for England throughout the competition, netting in the group-stage win against Israel and the quarter-final success over Portugal.
“I’m delighted and over the moon,” said Gordon after winning the tournament. “I feel as though I’ve had a good tournament and I don’t want give the cliché because it’s the truth – me winning the [player of the tournament] trophy was down to my teammates and the staff.
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“Lee and everyone involved have been really good with me throughout. The team is a really unselfish group and there could’ve been six or seven players who won it. That’s testament to how together we’ve been throughout the tournament.
“It was a very intense game, but we knew that coming into. Spain are a top team and they’re known for pushing players through their pathway and they have a particular style of play which is difficult to play against. So we knew we’d have to dig in at times and we did that really well ,and in tournaments sometimes you need a bit of luck and it came our way.
“I felt coming into the tournament, we had so much individual ability but it’s how you structure that and how we as individuals can put our egos aside and come together as one and that was the main part.
“Our chemistry off the pitch was second-to-none, I can’t tell you how good it was and I feel like the group in general was together in one goal and that was what we did.”
Team of the Tournament: Trafford, Garner, Harwood-Bellis, Colwill, Miranda, Rodri, Blanco, Jones, Sergio Gomes, Abel Ruiz, Gordon.
