Spain celebrated double title

International Sports

Hundreds of thousands packed central Madrid to give Spain a hero’s welcome home Monday after they beat Italy for the Euro 2012 title. JAVIER SORIANO/AFP/GettyImages.The team’s elegant performance in the Euro 2012 final raised spirits across a country drowning in financial woes and rampant unemployment.

It also made them the first team ever to bookend a World Cup championship (2010) with two Euro Cup triumphs (2008, 2012).

“This is historic and I’m here to support the team. They just might be able to do it again so we can win the (2014 World Cup) in Brazil,” said Jose Luis Clemente, 47, a bus inspector clad in the team jersey.

“It’s a rare positive point against such a terrible crisis in my country. It gives you some relief.”

Still, he was realistic.

“No football win is going to solve the crisis. That’s work for the economists and the politicians,” he added

The victory even had some Spaniards offering a tongue-in-cheek suggestion: Why not have the players run the country instead of Spain’s feckless politicians?

In one newspaper cartoon, del Bosque is surrounded by Casillas and other stars such as Xavi and Andres Iniesta, who are all dressed up in suits for a new line of work.

“The solution to our problems: the government of prime minister del Bosque and his ministers,” read the vignette in El Mundo.

As the country recovered from a national hangover of elation, pride and booze, Spaniards soaked up sweet memories of a night no one will forget. For a few hours, the realities of 25 per cent unemployment, a grinding recession and a banking bailout from the European Union to the tune of up to US$128-billion were put aside.“No team has ever done what they have done, and it helps you to stop thinking about the crisis for 90 minutes during the game and the next day for the party,” said Carlo del Pino, 25, a university student.

Del Pino said he hopes to teach physical education and coach one day but prospects are grim for graduates now with cutbacks in education funding, teacher pay cuts and layoffs of temporary teachers.

“I don’t know where I will be working when I graduate, whether it’s in Spain, Portugal or some other country,” he said. “But all the Spanish kids who are here cheering the team may want to do sports because of the victory, so that could help me.”

Retired air force officer Ramon Ramirez, 76, looked a bit out of place, dressed smartly in long sleeve formal shirt and pressed jeans amid a sea of folks decked out in red and yellow as he waited for the team to pass.

“For Spain, the headlines around the world have finally changed to good instead of the bad we’ve seen for months. Let’s hope it continues,” he said.

Maria Jose Herraiz, a 54-year-old homemaker, was so nervous she had to listen to the game on the radio instead of watching it on TV.

“When I heard people scream ’Goal!’ I would run to the TV,” she said.

She called the victory marvelous, a potent shot of mood-boosting adrenalin for people sorely in need of it, but said reality would come