TENS of thousands of Italians flocked onto the streets of Rome late in a damburst of joy after their team's World Cup win over France in a nail-biting penalty shoot-out in the final. Immediately after the final whistle in Germany, delirious supporters crowded into Piazza Venezia in the centre of the Italian capital to vent their delight and relief. In nearby Bibo's Bar across the road from Prime Minister Romano Prodi's party headquarters, delirium broke out after Italy's full-back Fabio Grosso buried the decisive penalty. "It's been a match of intense suffering but we've won it now, and everything's great," shouted waiter Carlo Dilizio, 47, above the din as fireworks rent the moonlight sky. "I bought an Italian flag in 1982 (the last time Italy won the World Cup) and I took it out of the drawer the other day to show my son. And I said, let's write 2006 on it, and hope," said Carlo. An Italian TV commentator declared that watching the tense match had caused great suffering: soffertissimo! At the ancient Circus Maximus, more than 150,000 people who watched the game on giant screens exploded with joy at the victory. "I don't believe it. It's a fairytale, it's just great to win after suffering so much. It's magnifico! " bayed 29- year-old Chiara. "It's the most beautiful emotion of my whole life. We're the world champions," shouted Giovanni, 23. For some, as the match ground on to extra-time and then penalties, the tension was almost too much to bear. "If Zidane scores another goal I'm jumping in the river, I swear," said Francesco Pignolo, 30, watching with friends at an open-air bar on the banks of the Tiber. For tourists, the unusual hush on Rome streets was an unexpected pleasure, turning the Eternal City into a hushed open air museum. "It's been really amazing not having any cars or anything," said Sophie Alidina, of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire in England, strolling the quiet streets with her mother, Jenny. First there was hope and expectation, then there was undiluted joy, a reality check, exasperation, despair and finally deflation -- that was the Champs Elysees during the final. What was supposed to be a great swansong for a player rightly lauded as the greatest of his generation, ended in a red card for French star Zinedine Zidane. And his hoards of loyal fans looked on in disbelief as they watched their talisman butt his way into an inglorious but dramatic retirement. The wild party expected to go on late into the night never took off, the millions expected to emerge never did. The only happy people, barring pockets of celebrating Italians, seemed to be those for whom the result bore little consequence to their reason for hitting the long boulevard in Paris. Some dejected football fans wearing the shirts of Les Bleus sat on the kerbside, many in tears, smoking cigarettes for the most part and looking fairly lonely and isolated. People who had watched the final at home and trundled off to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs in search of the party found little to encourage them to stay and wandered like lost souls. "The match was horrible and tense," lamented 24-year-old student Antoine Leclerc. "We were very expectant. There was a lot of noise throughout the match, people were singing the Marseillaise on their balconies. "But at the end, no-one was speaking. Now there is just consternation," added another student, Alexandra Flick, 19. "I just want to know what was said to Zizou." "We came here to see what it was like but there's nothing much happening," added Charlotte Leclerc, also 19. They wandered a little way down the Champs towards Place de la Concorde, turned around and were soon making their way back home.
