For three glorious weeks, football ruled in Europe. But that is all behind us now. Spain won the championship, and passions have died down -- that is except in Russia, where football fever is still gripping the population like some form of mass madness. There is a good reason for that excitement, of course. To everyone's pleasure and amazement -- including mine -- Russia's team rose from its initial standing in 16th place after a dismal showing in the qualifying round to finish in third place overall. Now even housewives who never cared about football before know that nothing like this has happened since 1988, when the Soviet team last made it to the European championships. Soccer coverage dominated the airwaves almost as much as Putin's Plan did before the presidential election. But we heard much less about the fact that Spain last made it to the finals in 1964, when they beat the Soviet team.