He was named to the squad for the tournament in West Germany by manager Rale Rasic. In the opening match against East Germany, Alston performed a move to beat defender Konrad Weise that was used later in the tournament by Dutch international Johan Cruyff and became known as the "Cruyff Turn". He later commented on Cruyff's use of the move "I used to do this trick but not very often, [...] He must have practiced it for five days because five days later he did the same thing against Sweden".