Firecrackers and car horns sounded late into the early morning following Spain’s narrow win over Italy - putting them through to the Euro 2008 football semi-finals. Amongst the crowd were Spain’s King and Queen who kept herself cool with a fan (the paper sort not the football sort). It was a tense match culminating in a nail-biting penalty shoot-out. The players highlighted in my earlier blog proved to be match-winning, with Spanish captain and goalkeeper Casillas heroically saving two of the Italian attempts and Fabregas slotting home the winning penalty for Spain.

This sparked the celebrations with cars noisily driving around town with Spanish flags billowing in the wind out of the cars. There were also bikes racing around with the pillion riders waving their flags in the breeze. My brother-in-law phoned me from Madrid after the game ended and we exchanged excited greetings and I reassured him that we have a great chance against Russia.

Now we have the big build up to Thursday’s semi final against Russia. This will be the 2nd time these countries have met as Spain beat Russia 4-1 in the opening Group D match. But the Russians have been unbeaten since with a creditable win over the much-fancied Dutch side. So the semi-final will see a much more confident Russian team lining up for a place in the finals. The other semi-final match will see Turkey taking on Germany with the Germans being the favourites to reach the final. But football can be a funny old game and nothing should be taken for certain.

The tournament is being used by some to ‘go shopping’ including Arsenal’s manager Arsène Wenger who, like the others, are looking for bargain players to bolster their squads for next season’s campaign. Doubtless some of the competitions heroes will be featuring in the UK Premier league in August.

So as the temperatures rise, so does the football passion, which for me is great as I can cheer on my adopted team even if a win does mean a noisy night trying to catch up on some sleep.