Mad From La Mancha

Cruel Quixotien deception affects entire Spanish nation

Aragones: not mad

Windmill: feared enemy of Fernando Torres

Look closer: Germany won, Germany won, Germany won...

Germany's 1-0 victory over Spain in Sunday's Euro 2008 in Vienna appears to have induced a mass fantasy in Spain, with the hapless underachievers convincing themselves they in fact won.

Spain have long been a "nearly side". However, by making it to the final of Euro 2008, it seemed that was about to change. But after losing the match, the country could not contemplate failure again and instead decided it had won.

Lenny Bruce

Dr Julius Limbani, Professor of Cervantes Studies at Croydon Evening College, told the Onion Bag's intrepid reporter Larry Gak, "Spain, the country, has sadly become affected with the same delusions of grandeur that affected the popular fictional fantasist, Don Quixote. Reality and sanity have proved all too much, and so every last one of them has escaped into a fantasy world. Don't be surprised if you see Fernando Torres waving a broom handle at windmills thinking they are ferocious giants," he said.

Sancho Panza

But veteran Spain coach Luis Aragones refused to accept the suggestion that victory was all in their minds.

"What are you talking about, you fools? We won the game. Are you saying we didn't?" he raged, clad in knackered armour from atop a skinny horse, a stumpy sidekick beside him. "Now away with you, for I must rescue my Dulcinea!"

Elmyr de Hory

The fantasy seems to have spread to the media, where TV stations, newspapers and websites all reported a victory for Spain, aiding what Germany sees as a consipiracy to brainwash hundreds of millions of people around the world that they lost.

Leon Trotsky

Renowed German psychologist Herr Dr Gunther Golightly clenched an iron fist, screwed his eyes tight, and dropped to his knees as he spewed forth, "Jah! Zee whole vorld cannot zee zer truth of German victory! Ve von one-nil. Ve vill rise again! Long live ze glorious Fourth Reich!" before being injected with horse tranquilisers.

Castro