ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Europe’s new soccer champions returned to a heroes’ welcome Monday as hundreds of thousands of partying fans lined the streets to greet them, and Greece’s spirits soared five weeks before the Aug. 13-29 Olympics.

Supporters – still hoarse from wild night-long celebrations – roared “Bring on Brazil” as the European Championship winners headed toward the all-marble Panathenian stadium, where the first modern Olympics were held in 1896.

When the team entered the stadium to the blaring music of “Zorba the Greek,” fireworks exploded.

“This is a great moment of joy,” said Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis, who traveled to Lisbon to watch Greece beat Portugal 1-0 in Sunday’s final. “I am sure this (feeling) will peak at the Olympic Games.”

More than 100,000 people in and around the stadium sang the national anthem as they awaited the Greek team and German coach Otto Rehhagel on a bus followed by thousands of motorcycles blaring their horns.

The coach, who has been offered Greek citizenship, sat holding the cup at the front of the bus, which slowly made its way through a sea of flares and Greek flags on the 22-mile route from the airport.

National colors of blue and white were draped over the city, over balcony rails, flapping out car windows, painted onto faces, tied around pet dogs and made into hats, T-shirts, champagne labels and cake decorations.

Angelos Charisteas’ winning header against Portugal was shown all day on giant outdoor television screens – the moment that sealed Greece’s remarkable three-week run past the hosts, Russia, Spain, France and the Czech Republic.

Olympic officials are hoping the victory will boost ticket sales for the games. With fewer than half the 5.3 million tickets sold, organizers hope the title will lure Greeks to stadiums.

“This is truly the best passport, the best invitation for the Olympic Games,” Caramanlis said.

The victory, he added, “gave a lesson of what we can achieve as Greeks when we really believe in something, are united and have self-confidence, dynamism and the method to pursue it.”

Greeks have in recent months become exhausted with Athens’ often delayed preparations for the games, which have for months led to endless traffic jams in the capital.

Many Greeks also have been worried about the massive cost overruns generated by Olympic preparations, which have nearly tripled the cost for the games to an estimated $7.29 billion.

But now, public sentiment may be changing.

“This win has brought out the fan in the Greek and it will make them more interested in the classical sports of the Olympic Games,” said Iason Melasinos, a 56-year-old Athenian artist who makes puppets used in the traditional shadow theater.

Athenians now have a “positive attitude, because before the win most people were negative about the games,” said Eleni Kalopita, 45, who works in a pastry shop.

Greek newspapers compared the players to winners of the ancient Olympic Games and rued the fact there were no walls around Athens to tear down in the traditional greeting for returning champions.

“We should tear down the walls, our boys are returning home as champions of Europe,” the Athens daily Ethnos said in a banner headline, while the sports daily SporTime wrote “God please give us more tears so we can keep crying from happiness.”

But it was a banner hanging from a suburban Athens street that most defined the Greek mood.

It read: “If this is a dream, then I never want to wake up.”

AP-ES-07-05-04 1741EDT