Euro 2012: Home press lavish praise on victorious Spain
They rewrote history, they became legends: the Spanish press left no superlative untouched in praise of Spain and their history-making 4-0 victory over Italy in the Euro 2012 final.
- Agence France-Presse
- Updated: July 02, 2012 04:33 AM IST
They rewrote history, they became legends: the Spanish press left no superlative untouched in praise of Spain and their history-making 4-0 victory over Italy in the Euro 2012 final.
Matchcentre | Match in pics | Euro 2012
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" cried the headline on the home page of the biggest-selling sports daily Marca, above a photo of the cheering team with captain Iker Casillas holding the trophy aloft.
Papers crowed over Spain taking a third straight international title, after winning the Euro 2008 and the World Cup in 2010 -- a feat never accomplished before.
"The Spanish team scored with ease over Italy in the Euro final and left the footballing continent at its feet, completing an historic triple," La Marca glowed.
Conservative daily El Mundo's home page declared the team as "Champions of Legend" and described their victory as "Spain's masterpiece".
"Football as an opiate of the people in suffocating times. Football as a metaphor of the courage of collective effort and the definitive loss of those complexes that hobble dreams," the paper said.
"A handful of sportsmen without equal, moulded from a winning gene and led by a coach of firm convictions ... showed in the Kiev Olympic Stadium that Spain, too, can be an example," it said.
Leading daily El Pais said the win would go down in history.
"Spain has written its name in letters of gold in the history of football," the paper said on its home page.