By Mark Mulligan in Madrid

Spain’s national soccer squad returned to a hero’s welcome in Madrid on Monday after a historic European Championship victory that has momentarily distracted the country from its declining economic fortunes and regional differences.

Hundreds of thousands of supporters lined the capital’s central boulevard and main squares to receive the squad, the first to claim the title since 1964 when a previous Spanish team triumphed over Russia in the presence of Francisco Franco, the country’s fascist dictator.

The significance of Sunday’s 1-0 victory over Germany was not lost on José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who described himself as the “first Spanish prime minister in [times of] democracy to experience such a title win”.

The victory also provided a huge boost for Spanish soccer. Despite boasting some of the world’s best-known clubs, the national team’s record in regional and global tournaments has, for decades, been a source of frustration in the soccer-mad country. The closest the country has ever been to a World Cup, for example, was a fourth place at the 1950 competition in Brazil.

Mr Zapatero will be hoping that the national euphoria unleashed by Sunday night’s triumph lingers for a bit. On Wednesday he has been called to give account of Spain’s rapid economic deceleration to Congress, after being rounded on by all but his own Socialist party. With rising mortgage, food and energy costs battering Spanish households, the country is braced for at least two years of slowing economic growth and climbing jobless rates after a decade-long construction-driven boom.

However, on Monday at least, all that was forgotten.

“Today, the euribor is not at 5.3 per cent,” wrote columnist Vicente Lozano in the online version of Expansión, the financial daily. “Today, inflation is not off the charts.”

Like other commentators he suggested that the Spanish victory had unified a country where regionalist passions run hot and often boil over into violence. Fernando Torres, who scored Spain’s goal, described it as a “great victory for a whole country”.

Midfielder Cesc Fábregas, one of six squad members from the staunchly autonomous region of Catalonia, said the cup win transcended the traditionally fierce regional rivalry between the Real Madrid and Barcelona clubs.

“This was not a victory for Madrid or for Barça,” he said. “This was a victory for a country and a victory for football.”

However, not everyone in Spain was behind the national squad. A handful of politicians from Catalonia and the Basque country, another separatist region, made pointedly neutral comments about the national squad’s chances. In Barcelona, the Catalan capital, there were no giant television screens of the type installed in other city squares around Spain.

The percentage of televisions tuned in to the match – which peaked at more than 87 per cent in Madrid – was noticeably lower in the Basque country, Catalonia and the Catalan-speaking Balearic islands.

Mr Zapatero, too, had his doubts about the sport’s unifying properties, saying on Monday he did not know whether the cup victory actually helped cement trans-regional bonds. But he added: “In any case, I don’t think it will do any harm, that’s for sure.”