{"id":58005,"date":"2026-07-20T08:54:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T08:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/58005\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T08:54:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T08:54:21","slug":"bangkok-post-spains-world-champions-head-home-to-million-strong-madrid-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/58005\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangkok Post &#8211; Spain&#8217;s world champions head home to million-strong Madrid welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/c1_6160550.jpg\"   alt=\"Spain's supporters celebrate victory after the 2026 World Cup final match between Spain and Argentina at Cibeles square in Madrid\" class=\"img-fluid\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpain&#8217;s supporters celebrate victory after the 2026 World Cup final match between Spain and Argentina at Cibeles square in Madrid\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>MADRID &#8211; Spain&#8217;s World Cup winners were due home on Monday to a heroes&#8217; welcome in Madrid where a million fans are expected to greet them after a night of raucous celebrations across the country.<\/p>\n<p>The triumph has sparked an outpouring of national pride in football-mad Spain, where many younger supporters had never witnessed the men&#8217;s team lift the World Cup since their only previous title came in South Africa in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Fresh from their 1-0 victory over Argentina in Sunday&#8217;s final in East Rutherford, United States, coach Luis de la Fuente&#8217;s squad is due to land in Madrid at 12:50 pm (1050 GMT) with the golden trophy.<\/p>\n<p>The players are then expected to be received by King Felipe VI and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez before climbing aboard an open-top bus for a parade through central Madrid beginning at around 4:30 pm.<\/p>\n<p>They will travel from near the Moncloa Palace, the prime minister&#8217;s official residence, to Cibeles Square, the central government&#8217;s representative in Madrid, Francisco Martin, told Spanish public television.<\/p>\n<p>A ceremony involving the players will then be held at the square, the traditional gathering point for celebrations by the Spanish national team and its supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Around one million people are expected to line the parade route, with additional security and transport measures planned to handle the crowds, Martin said.<\/p>\n<p>A total of 2,050 police officers and 400 Civil Guard personnel will be deployed, he added.<\/p>\n<p>The precise timetable for the festivities had not been fully confirmed on Monday morning, however, with Sanchez scheduled to make a brief visit to Algeria before returning to Spain in the afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>The royal household had also yet to confirm whether the king would attend the celebrations.<\/p>\n<p>The scenes are expected to echo the celebrations that followed Spain&#8217;s first World Cup title in 2010, when hundreds of thousands of supporters flooded Madrid&#8217;s streets to welcome the team home after their victory in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; &#8216;Campeones!&#8217; &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>While the country waited for the team&#8217;s arrival, celebrations continued overnight from Madrid to Spain&#8217;s smallest villages on Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p>The capital was already buzzing with activity after the final, where thousands of supporters who gathered in bars and three fan zones had poured out into the streets in celebration.<\/p>\n<p>Car horns blared, fireworks lit the sky and supporters poured into streets and squares moments after the final whistle, despite a tense final in which Spain struggled for long periods to break down the Argentine defence.<\/p>\n<p>At Madrid&#8217;s Colon Square, where a fan zone had been set up for the match, supporters wrapped in Spain&#8217;s red-and-yellow flag sang and danced long into the balmy summer night, while others set off flares and fireworks, an AFP journalist observed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Campeones, campeones! (Champions, champions!)&#8221; chanted jubilant fans.<\/p>\n<p>Others shouted &#8220;Que viva Espana! (long live Spain)&#8221; as they celebrated a triumph that came just two years after Spain&#8217;s Euro 2024 victory and with the women&#8217;s national team already holding the world title won in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You have faced each challenge with the conviction of a great team and have carried the name of Spain to the very top,&#8221; the Spanish Royal Household said on social media platform X, hailing a &#8220;reward&#8221; stemming in particular from &#8220;exemplary commitment in every match&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Today, we celebrate a title. Tomorrow we will remember a legend,&#8221; it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain&#8217;s supporters celebrate victory after the 2026 World Cup final match between Spain and Argentina at Cibeles square&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17428,2312,4888,82,23780,205,23779,18345,23781],"class_list":["post-58005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-cibeles-square","tag-king-felipe-vi","tag-luis-de-la-fuente","tag-madrid","tag-madrid-parade","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-spain-world-cup-victory","tag-spanish-national-football-team","tag-world-cup-celebrations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}