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By Jane Flanagan and Wil Longbottom
Champions return: Spanish captain Iker Casillas lifts the World Cup as the team parades through Madrid todaySpain's World Cup-winning team arrived home today to a glittering parade through historic Madrid.
The victorious squad were welcomed by airport staff decked out in the famous red and yellow of the national side at Madrid's Barajas airport.
They then travelled to a hotel to rest, before being received by King Juan Carlos in the Royal Palace and meeting with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
But the highlight of their homecoming was the 3-mile open-topped bus ride through the Madrid streets teaming with hundreds of thousands of fans celebrating Spain's first World Cup title.
One giant party: Overjoyed fans are sprayed with water to keep cool in the scorching sunshine
Filling the streets: Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards filled the Madrid streets to welcome the team home
Lighting up the sky: Members of the Spanish Air Force aerobatic group Patrulla Aguila display colours of the Spain's national flag during the celebrationsEarlier today, as the squad touched down in Madrid, captain Iker Casillas emerged from the plane clutching the trophy, closely followed by the Spain manager Vicente del Bosque.
A special slogan printed along the fuselage of their Iberia plane read 'Proud of our National Team Champions.'
The crowd of airport workers then broke out into a chant of 'Campeones, Campeones,' - meaning champions.
The players, wearing their team shirts, walked from the plane to a waiting Spanish football federation bus.
Sheer joy had reigned in Spain last night as fans took to the streets to celebrate as their country scored four minutes before the end of extra time of the World Cup final to win 1-0 against Holland, sparking carnival-like scene across the country.
They lit flares and flocked to fountains – a favourite celebratory tradition among Spaniards – after Andres Iniesta sealed a victory that had been long denied to this football-loving nation.
Road block: The Spanish players were given a police escort
Welcome home: Iker Casillas proudly holds the World Cup aloft as the team emerged from its plane in Madrid this afternoon
Captain fantastic: Casillas emerged from the Spanish team's plane alongside manager Vicente del Bosque to thunderous applause from airport staffThey even sang the praises of Paul the 'oracle' octopus who successfully his eighth accurate win in a row at the match in Johannesburg watched on TV by 750million.
Here in Britain, Spaniards headed to Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus in central London.
But where rapture reigned in Spain, heartbreak filled the streets of Holland, where expectant fans clad in orange watched their team lose in a third World Cup final.
The scenes of joy and pain came after a tempestuous match that saw the largest number of bookings in the tournament’s history.
English referee Howard Webb set the new world record by handing out 14 yellow cards and one red in a nail-biting finale which ended in the dying minutes of extra time.
He faced angry remonstrations from the Dutch after last night's match for some of his decisions.
They argued that he should have sent off Spanish defender Carles Puyol for a tackle and failed to award their side a corner moments before the goal when a free-kick took a deflection off Spain's Cesc Fabregas.
Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk said of the former police sergeant: 'I don't think the referee controlled the match well.'
Celebrations: Pilots inside the Spanish team plane wave flags out of the window with the message 'proud of our national team champions' on the fuselage
In Royal hands: Spain's King Juan Carlos (middle) holds the World Cup next to goalkeeper Iker Casillas (right) and coach Vicente del Bosque (left) at the Royal Palace in Madrid
A cup fit for a princess: The goalkeeper proudly shows off the winning prize to Princesses Leonor and Sofia, the daughters of Prince Felipe and Princess LetiziaEarlier in the day, his family had hit out at 'extreme pressure' from the sport's governing body FIFA. They had warned that attending the evening spectacular would prove 'too strenuous' for him.
The spectacle of him riding on to the Soccer City pitch on the back of a golf buggy, flanked by his third wife Graca Machel, prompted a deafening blast of vuvuzelas and cheers from the 85,000-strong crowd.
Smiling broadly, his thin frame muffled in a scarf and coat, Mr Mandela waved to the crowd and shook hands of starstruck well-wishers.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner is rarely seen in public these days and is in increasingly fragile health.
Mr Mandela’s grandson today lashed out at Fifa's controversial president Sepp Blatter in particular for putting too much pressure on him to attend.
Plans for him to be at the opening ceremony and game were cancelled after his 13-year-old great granddaughter was killed in a car crash the night before.
Royal thank you: King Juan Carlos, centre, and members of the royal family pose with the Spanish national team and World Cup at a reception at the Royal Palace
Hero: Liverpool's Fernando Torres talks to children at the Spanish team hotel after the arrive back in Madrid
World at their feet: The Spanish press celebrate their World Cup triumphOn the morning of the final, the former South African president's grandson Mandla Mandela told the BBC: 'We've come under extreme pressure from Fifa requiring and wishing that my grandfather be at the final.
'I think people ought to just understand the family's traditions and customs and understand we've had a loss in the family and we are in mourning and that for me would be enough reason to leave the family to be for now.'
Although pundits will never record the tournament as the most successful in footballing terms, the month-long event has had a hugely unifying effect on South Africa which continues to be dogged by racial divisions, 16 years after the end of apartheid.
last night’s final will certainly prove to be the noisiest match of the entire competition with fans enjoying their last chance to blast the controversial vuvuzela, which has become synonymous with the tournament.
And the sight of the legendary anti-apartheid leader gave South Africa a chance to relive the 'Mandela moment’ from the 1995 rugby World Cup, when the country’s first black president donned the captain’s jersey of the winning rugby team.
Goal! Spain's Andres Iniesta (right) shoots the ball past Netherlands goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg in the second half of extra time
Champions: Spain's goalkeeper Iker Casilla lifts the World Cup after beating the Netherlands 1-0 in a bad-tempered final at the Soccer City stadium outside Johannesburg
Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder vents his frustration as he is penalised by English referee Howard Webbsource: dailymail
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