Spanish players celebrating their victory in Madrid.

Spain met Russia again in the semi-final, once again beating them, this time by . After a slow first half, Xavi, Dani Güiza, and David Silva scored the three goals, while the team was wearing what they considered "unlucky" yellow jerseys[8]. In the final, played in Vienna's Ernst-Happel-Stadion, Spain were up against three-time champions Germany. Spain won 1–0 with a goal scored by Fernando Torres in the 33rd minute. This was Spain's first major title in 44 years since the 1964 European Championship. Spain's total of 12 goals in the tournament made them the top scoring team and striker David Villa finished as the top scorer with four goals. Xavi was awarded the player of the tournament. Nine Spanish players were picked for the UEFA Euro 2008 Team of the Tournament, goalkeeper and captain Iker Casillas, defenders Carles Puyol, Carlos Marchena, midfielders Xavi, Cesc Fà bregas, Andrés Iniesta, Marcos Senna and strikers David Villa and Fernando Torres.

Spain ended the tournament as the only unbeaten team to win since Germany in 1996 and the only group winner to advance beyond the quarterfinals in Euro 2008 as Portugal, Croatia, and the Netherlands were all eliminated by Germany, Turkey and Russia at that stage. Due to their highly impressive performance at the tournament, Spain was awarded the first place at the FIFA World Rankings for the first time in their history on July 1, 2008, just two days after being crowned European Champions for the second time. They became only the sixth team to share this privilege along with Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Italy and also the first team never to have won a World Cup to achieve this.

Luis Aragonés became the oldest coach to win a European Championship and the second to win one with Spain after José Villalonga won it in 1964 on home soil. 27-year-old Iker Casillas became the first goalkeeper-captain to lift up the trophy. Aragonés also enjoys the distinction of having led Spain to the most victories, a record previously held by Javier Clemente. Aragonés has won 38, drawn 12, and lost only 4 out of 54 matches in charge, compared to 36 victories, 20 draws, and 6 defeats by Clemente.

On 11 March 2008, Vicente del Bosque announced that, starting 29 June, he would replace Luis Aragonés, who left the job due to the fact that he did not feel the Spanish Football Federation wanted him to continue. It took until 15 July, 2008 for del Bosque to be officially confirmed as the new coach. For the friendly against Denmark on 20 August 2008, the Spanish Football Federation asked del Bosque to call up the same 23 players who were chosen to represent Spain at Euro 2008 as a tribute to their success, however, due to injuries suffered by Andrés Palop, Cesc Fà bregas and Carlos Marchena, they could not be selected. Del Bosque then chose to bring only two goalkeepers and replaced Marchena with Fernando Amorebieta, Cesc Fà bregas with Diego Capel and also decided to replace Álvaro Arbeloa with Andoni Iraola and Sergio García with Bojan due to technical reasons. Spain won the match3–0.