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By Sonya Dowsett
MADRID, June 29 (Reuters) - Euphoric Spaniards poured into the streets on Sunday to celebrate their European Championship victory over Germany, the first time the country has won a major soccer tournament in 44 years.
Elated fans draped in red and yellow Spanish flags thronged the streets in the hot summer evening, cheering and shouting "Viva Espana" as the fiesta began.
"I couldn't watch. I can't believe it. They really deserve it," said 38-year-teacher Eva Lumbreras, coming out of her house in a Madrid suburb to join other revellers outside as fireworks lit up the sky.
Cars and motorcycles gridlocked roads, blaring their horns and waving flags.
Thousands of spectators with their faces painted yellow and red cried and hugged each other in Plaza Colon, the central Madrid square where the match had been aired on a giant screen.
It is the first time Spain have won a major soccer tournament since their victory over the Soviet Union to win the European Championship trophy in 1964 and gives the country something to celebrate in a year of economic woes.
"I'm crying -- we've been waiting 44 years for this," said 28-year-old telephone engineer Hector Lopez in a central Madrid bar. "We had to prove what we could do and we did it. It's going to give the country a lift."
A grinning Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was in no mood to manage expectations.
"This is just the beginning, the best is yet to come -- now we're going for the World Cup!" he said in a television interview from the Ernst Happel stadium in Vienna where he had been watching the match alongside King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain. (Additional reporting by Ben Harding and Mark Elkington)
