Spurs players off to EURO 2024
By Tom Vinall
With Friday's squad announcement deadline passed, we now know for definite which Tottenham players will be off to represent their nations at this summer's European Championships.
Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, Radu Dragusin, Guglielmo Vicario, and Micky Van De Ven will be representing Denmark, Romania, Italy, and The Netherlands respectively.
Højbjerg is expected to start in midfield along with Brentford's Christian Norgaard and familiar name Christian Eriksen. Højbjerg scored two minutes into a friendly win over Scandinavian counterparts Sweden on Thursday from an Eriksen assist. Denmark will face off against Slovenia, England, and Serbia in Group C.
Dragusin will start every game at the heart of the Romania defense, as he and his team-mates showdown against Ukraine, Belgium, and Slovakia in Group D.
Unfortunately, Vicario is expected to be Italy's second-choice goalkeeper behind the divisive Gianluigi Donnarumma. Vicario made his Italy debut in a victory over Ecuador in March of this year and also kept a clean sheet in his second appearance, a friendly win over Turkey a few days ago.
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Tottenham players off to UEFA EURO 2024
Despite his impressive season in North London and the aforementioned two clean sheets, it's highly expected that Donnarumma will keep his place between the sticks. In any case, Vicario's Italy will be up against Spain, Croatia, and Albania in what is considered by many the "Group of Death".
Micky Van De Ven has made his way into Ronald Koeman's final 26-man squad having initially been in the provisional squad announced a couple of weeks ago.
Koeman's recent change to a 433 formation may have helped Van De Ven claim a starting spot. In the previous 3 at the back formation, Nathan Ake was seen as the left-sided center-back, but in a back four, Van De Ven started as a left-back in a 4-0 friendly win over Canada. It must be caveated that Ake wasn't available for selection having joined the camp late after the FA Cup final, but his impressive performance, which was praised by Koeman, will certainly not have done his starting chances any harm.
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Good Luck to all four players, and hopefully they will all return to N17 with a clean bill of health.