Henry (far right) - delighted with victory (Allsport).

France striker Thierry Henry led the French celebrations after the World Champions came back from the brink of defeat to clinch the Euro 2000 crown.

The Arsenal hitman was named man of the match as his country grabbed an dramatic equaliser deep into stoppage time before David Trezeguet fired home the Golden Goal in extra time.

Marco Delvecchio had put Italy ahead in Rotterdam but, with seconds remaining in normal time, Sylvain Wiltord drove France level.

Henry said: ``For me this is amazing. I've seen pictures from the Champs Elysees and it's going crazy down there. It's madness.

``When we won the World Cup people said we had an advantage because it was in France. They said we had an easy group and we needed penalties to beat Italy.

``This time we had a very difficult group, we had hard matches against Portugal and Spain and we were able to prove we can come back from 1-0 down against Portugal and Italy.

``We people must realise about this team is that we have a great mentality. When we were losing we kept going back again and again.''

Henry consoled the Italians after Trezeguet's dramatic late winner, while coach Roger Lemerre paid tribute to his players who looked out for the count as the clock ticked past 90 minutes and the Italians played keep-ball in the French half.

Lemerre said: ``If you still have one second to play you must play that second with full power but we saw the minutes going by and the hope turned to desperation.

``One hopes for a miracle and this time the miracle happened. Perhaps we helped the miracle along.

``It was truly a victory for attacking football. I say this quite clearly. We're very fortunate to have talented young players and I would have been wrong not to resort to the riches I have.

``The Italians played another type of football which was almost successful in this championship and this was a clash of two cultures but the Italian coach also played attacking football, with two attackers.

Dino Zoff was naturally crestfallen after watching the European Championships snatched from his grasp deep into stoppage time.

Zoff said: ``This is one of the worst nights of my life. It can happen at any time but it happened tonight. It was a defeat.

``You are sure of victory and it runs away in the last minute. This is very serious.

``We had a lot of chances to score and lost in over-time but you can't say my players didn't put up a fight.

``We were after a second goal. We didn't get it but we went after it and I believed that was right.

``But you must remember some matches go on for 120 minutes, then you get a bit if bad luck against you and it's over. That's the nature of the game.''