Tens of thousands of fans in Madrid welcomed Spain’s national football team back from Germany on Monday, triumphant after beating England in the Euro 2024 final, with one of the more prominent chants during celebrations being ‘Gibraltar is Spanish’. ALSO READ: Spain beat England 2-1 to win Euro 2024 – and Carlos Alcaraz wins Wimbledon.
The Spanish team returned to the capital on Monday afternoon, posing with the trophy on the runway where their plane landed. There followed receptions with King Felipe VI and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
La Roja were then paraded through the capital city on an open-top bus adorned with the message ‘it’s only the beginning’, with the trophy at the front of the bus.
The likes of Lamine Yamal, Nico Williams and Sunday’s match-winner in Berlin, Mikel Oyarzabal, wore white T-shirts with the number four on them, in reference to the record number of times Spain have won the European Championship.
‘For now, we’re not realising yet what we have accomplished,’ Williams said.
The winger, who scored the opening goal of the 2-1 victory, was also eager to thank Spain’s fans ‘for the love and warmth they brought the team’.
The team bus took them to Plaza Cibeles in central Madrid where thousands more fans waited to celebrate the success, following on from victories in 1964, 2008 and 2012.
Captain Alvaro Morata, who has been open about suffering mental health problems due to the onslaught of criticism he has received on social media over the years, surprised everyone by acting as the master of ceremonies as he introduced each and every one of the players and coach with humour and energy.
In fact, it was Morata who interrupted the player callout with the first ¡Gibraltar es español! (Gibraltar is Spanish!) chant, which the crowd of Spaniards watching joined in singing.
This was in reference to the fact that they had just beaten England, also reflecting that many in Spain are still frustrated about the fact that there’s an overseas British territory annexed to the Spanish mainland.
When Spain beat the Three Lions on Sunday, hundreds of cars honked their horns in La Línea at the Spain-Gibraltar border. Spain continues to dispute control of the tiny territory since it was ceded to Britain in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. ALSO READ: Spain and the UK make ‘significant progress’ in Gibraltar talks.
Midfield maestro Rodri also started the Gibraltar chant later during celebrations in Madrid, after which he was reminded by Morata that ‘you play in England, mate’ (Manchester City). He said that he ‘didn’t care’.
The celebrations included musical performances by renowned Spanish artists and some out-of-key singing by the players and coach Luis de La Fuente themselves, some of the former appearing to be fairly inebriated.
De La Fuente also took the opportunity to tell the millions of people watching on TV that a ‘united Spain is stronger’, assumed to be in reference to Basque and Catalan nationalist and pro-independence sentiments.
🤯Rodri se arranca con el cántico de ‘Gibraltar es español’ … ¡y Álvaro Morata le recuerda que juega en un equipo inglés!#Euro2024 #EuroRTVE
— RTVE (@rtve) July 15, 2024
➡ https://t.co/mEyijVMic3 pic.twitter.com/JXi3pu6Ox0
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