It’s five years today since Spain and Italy contested the Euro 2012 final at the Olympic Stadium in Kiev.

Spain went into the final as strong favourites and they saved their best performance of the entire tournament for the last match.

Vicente del Bosque’s side recorded a magnificent 4-0 victory, with the goals provided by David Silva, Jordi Alba, Fernando Torres and Juan Mata.

The result meant Spain became the first team ever to win two consecutive European Championships.

La Roja also became the first team to win three consecutive major tournaments following their triumphs at Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup.

Spain dominated Italy in the final

Italy were simply outclassed in the final and had no way of nullifying Spain’s hugely effective tiki-taka approach.

The Azzurri had reached the final with a superb 2-1 victory over Germany in the semi-finals - Mario Balotelli with both goals in that match - but Spain were on a totally different level and thoroughly deserved to win the tournament.

Casillas's brilliant gesture in stoppage time

In the closing stages of the match, there was a brilliant moment involving Spain’s captain, Iker Casillas.

The vastly-experienced goalkeeper, who was still a Real Madrid player at the time, demanded the match officials blow for full-time during stoppage time in order to end Italy’s suffering.

After chasing shadows for most of the 90 minutes, and fully aware their dream of winning Euro 2012 was dead in the water long before stoppage time, Italy’s players must have been praying to hear the final whistle from the Portuguese referee Pedro Proença.

“Ref!” Casillas called to the assistant referee neat his goal. “Respect for the rival.”

He added: “Respect for Italia. It’s 4-0, yes?”

However, Casillas had barely finished speaking when the final whistle was blown.

You can watch the footage here...

Spain were crowned champions of Europe again but the Italians will never forget Casillas’s admirable gesture.