A sea of red and yellow filled the streets of Madrid as many Spaniards, draped in the colours of the national flag, celebrated their team's Euro 2012 triumph and forgot for a moment about the country's deep economic woes.
A 4-0 drubbing of Italy in the final in Ukraine saw Spain retain their European Championship title, underlining the country's dominance of the football stage after winning the World Cup in South Africa two years ago.
Spain's sporting success has brought relief to a country where one in four workers are out of a job, and whose fragile banking system has needed European support of up to 100 billion euros.
For a moment, Spaniards could not care less about the economy, and looked forward to extending their run of three trophies in a row to the next World Cup to be held in 2014 in Brazil.
