Le Saux chooses only one England star in Euro XI

Matt Stead

Graeme Le Saux has revealed the Fantasy Football team he has picked for Euro 2016, with one England player making his XI.

Germany and France lead the way in Le Saux’s team with two picks each, while Switzlerland, Spain, Austria, Croatia, Portugal, Wales and England all have a representative each.

Fantasy XI - Graeme Le Saux sites

Speaking to Planet Football, the latest addition to our network of brands, Le Saux explained his choices…

Manuel Neuer: I think he’s the world’s best goalkeeper. There are other contenders, but they’d struggle to top him.

Stephan Lichtsteiner: He’s won Serie A five years in a row with Juventus and has an enormous amount of experience. I have to say, though, if Philipp Lahm was available I’d have picked him. I don’t use the word great very often, but he is a great player.

Raphael Varane and Gerard Pique: They’d have to sort out their club differences, but Varane is an incredible athlete and reads the game so well. Pique’s not such an incredible athlete, but he has that wealth of experience and also reads the game brilliantly. He’s a very gifted player.

David Alaba: He’s a quality player, has lots of experience and doesn’t do a lot wrong. He was the obvious choice for me.

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Paul Pogba: It all goes a bit pear shaped from here because I’ve got so many creative players and haven’t made any allowance with any holding midfielders, but Pogba is the present and the future of football. People talk about France being the favourites; the first thing they’ll say when you ask why is ‘well, Paul Pogba’s in their team’. So he’d get into my side even though he doesn’t have the tournament experience of some of the others.

Luka Modric: It gets even more complicated from here because there are so many players that can fill the other spots, but I’m a massive fan of Luka Modric. I just think he’s a brilliant player so I’m going to put him in there despite the fact you’ve got players like Busquets, Iniesta and loads of others that people will say should be in there.

Mesut Ozil: This was a three-horse race between Ozil, Hazard and De Bruyne. How do you pick one of those? Can we give them 30 minutes each?! But Ozil was voted German Player of the Year. If you think of the players in the German national side and he’s player of the year, that’s enough justification why he should be in the team.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale: I don’t rate either of them, but I’ll stick them in!

Harry Kane: I think he’s going to have a tournament. You could pick Ibrahimovic, that would be an obvious choice, but Kane is my wild card because I think he’d benefit from having all those players around him. His goalscoring ratio and the types of goals he scores…whatever level he plays at he’s going to score goals.

 

Graeme Le Saux was speaking to Planet Football on behalf of LloydsPharmacy’s Online Doctor service