“Jaaaa!” read the banner headline on the website of Bild, Germany’s biggest selling newspaper. “Michael Ballack spielt.” The captain’s successful fitness test was the talk of the rowdy German contingent on the underground train to the Ernst Happel Stadion, but, as they headed back down the U-2 line a few hours later, leaving a Spanish fiesta behind them, Ballack was left once more with the empty and painfully familiar feeling of the runner-up.

No less an authority than Franz Beckenbauer ventured on the eve of this game that Ballack is in the form of his life, but it is a season that the Chelsea midfield player will look back on with regrets: beaten by Tottenham Hotspur in the Carling Cup final, beaten by Manchester United to the Barclays Premier League title and in the Champions League final and now, in the shirt of Germany, beaten by Spain in the European Championship final.

Add those to the trio of runners-up medals he picked up with Bayer Leverkusen in 2002 and the silver medal from the World Cup the same year, when he missed the final against Brazil through suspension, and you get some impression why he looked so weary as the final whistle of a glorious tournament confirmed Spain as European champions.

This threatened at times to be Ballack’s tournament, most notably when he inspired Germany to a 3-2 victory over Portugal in the quarter-final, but here, against a technically superior Spain team, he could carry his team no farther. Having played heroically, he looked fit to drop at the end, the pain no doubt returning to his injured calf, which caused him to miss training on Friday and Saturday, and the right side of face, which he cut in a clash with Marcos Senna in the first half. Above all, there will have been a heavy heart as the endeavours of a tough campaign came to naught.

This tournament was never going to be a stroll for Germany, a team who, in the eyes of many, overachieved in making it this far. It was a campaign that they had dubbed the Bergtour (mountain tour) as they prepared for their expedition to Austria and Switzerland, but that theme felt more appropriate than ever last night as Ballack and his teammates fell agonisingly short of conquering the summit.

None of the blame can be laid at Ballack’s door. He drove Germany on throughout, cajoling his teammates in the manner of a Roy Keane, competing as aggressively as ever while passing the ball with the grace and majesty for which he is renowned. He stuck out like a sore thumb in this team, but a lapse of concentration from Philipp Lahm, one of the few other Germany players of genuine class, let Fernando Torres score the goal that brought 44 years of hurt to an end for Spain.

In technical terms, there could never be any comparison between these teams. That Germany progressed this far was down to teamwork, discipline and the winning mentality that has characterised their football ever since West Germany unexpectedly beat Hungary, the “Magical Magyars” of Ferenc Puskas, Sandor Kocsis and Nandor Hidegkuti, to win the World Cup on Swiss soil in 1954.

At the end, while some of his teammates slumped to the ground, Ballack stood with his hands on his hips on the halfway line, a matter of yards from the throng of celebrating Spaniards. This was that same old feeling again, the feeling of the runner-up, the feeling that he knows all too well. And then they played Queen’s We are the Champions. “No time for losers,” Freddie Mercury sang. Ballack is no loser, but last night, yet again, he probably felt like one.