Spain have history in their sights this evening as they look to put years of flattering to deceive behind them in the Euro 2008 final in Vienna.

But first they need to overcome the immovable force of Germany, who have again proved the doubters wrong by reaching the latter stages of a major tournament.

Based on the performances of both sides in their respective semi-finals the clever money would be on the Spaniards, but Luis Aragones and his side know that Germany are not a team to write off


Aragones’ side swept past Russia 3-0 in Vienna on Thursday thanks to a blistering second-half display which resulted in goals from Xavi, Daniel Guiza and David Silva.

Germany, on the other hand, had to rely on a late and largely undeserved winner against a depleted Turkish side as they won their last four clash 3-2.

Spain are chasing their first title since they won the European crown in 1964 and are in their first final for 24 years.

Expectation back home has gone through the roof with fans desperate for Spain to banish their reputation as world football’s great underachievers and Liverpool midfielder Xavi Alonso is confident they can give them what they crave.

He told PA Sport: “The best is yet to come and we need to finish off what we have done so far. We are hungry for success, we want to lift the cup.”

Spain went into the tournament as one of the favourites but sceptics pointed to their mental fragility as one reason why they would not succeed.

Time and time again they have failed on the big stage.

It happened two years ago in Germany when they lost to France in the quarter-finals while in Portugal at Euro 2004 they failed to get out of their group.

Before that there was the quarter-final exit to South Korea at the 2002 World Cup, a game that Spain would have won had a perfectly good goal in extra-time by Fernando Morientes had been allowed to stand instead of being ruled out for offside.