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resulting in a penalty shoot-out which Spain won 4–2. Spain met Russia again in the semi-final, again beating them, this time by 3-0.

In the final, played in Vienna's Ernst-Happel-Stadion, Spain defeated Germany 1–0, with a goal scored by Fernando Torres in the 33rd minute. This was Spain's first major title since the 1964 European Championship. Spain were the top scoring team, with 12 goals, and David Villa finished as the top scorer with four goals; Xavi was awarded the player of the tournament, and nine Spanish players were picked for the UEFA Euro 2008 Team of the Tournament.

Shortly after the tournament, Spain reached the top of the FIFA World Rankings for the first time, the first team never to have won a World Cup to achieve this.



Confederations Cup debut and 2010 World Cup qualification

Luis Aragonés left the manager's role after the Euro 2008 success, and was replaced by Vicente del Bosque.

2008 saw David Villa score 12 goals in 15 games, breaking the Spanish record of 10 goals in one year held by Raúl since 1999. On 11 February 2009, David Villa broke another Spanish record as his 36th-minute goal saw him become the first Spanish player to score in six consecutive games.

Spain began its 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign with six

successive wins, and went into the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup as one of the favourites. By the start of the tournament, Del Bosque's had ten consecutive wins, making him the first international manager to do so from his debut, breaking Joao Saldanha's record, held since 1969, of nine consecutive wins with Brazil.

Spain won all three of its matches at the group stage, the 5–0 win over New Zealand including a Fernando Torres hat-trick that is the earliest and fastest hat-trick in the tournament's history. With further wins over Iraq (1–0) and South Africa (2–0) they earned not only qualification for the semifinals, but also obtained the world record for 15 consecutive wins and tied the record of 35 consecutive unbeaten games (with Brazil).