Published on : 07/07/2021 – 12:16
The England-Denmark semi-final, Wednesday at Wembley, will also mark opposition from supporters’ chants. The English have their unofficial anthem, “Football’s Coming Home”, a heady pop song to the glory of the English “lose”. Opposite, the Danes display their official anthem, printed on the jersey.
Without the restrictions linked to Covid-19, the semi-final between England and Denmark on Wednesday July 7 could have given rise to a beautiful musical battle at Wembley. If the English supporters will be there to sing their famous “Football’s Coming Home”, their Danish opponents will not be able to answer them in chorus by praising their “charming country”. Presentation of the favorite songs of the two selections.
• “Football’s Coming Home” : the defeatist anthem of 1996 soon to be outdated ?
A catchy tune, a refrain repeated over and over, a good dose of British self-mockery, this is the recipe for “Football’s Coming Home”, a stainless anthem of the English since 1996.
“Thirty years of pain never stopped me from dreaming, so many jokes, so many taunts, but all that ‘oh, we were almost there’ ends up weighing down over the years,” says this bittersweet song on perky chords.
Written at the request of the English Football Federation in 1996 to support the organization of the Euro in the homeland of football, it still resonates in this Euro, 25 years later, before the “Three Lions” matches at Wembley .
While the “britpop” (English pop) at the time divided the country and the world between fans of Blur – and therefore of Chelsea – and Oasis – and therefore of Manchester City -, the group The Lightning Seeds had been chosen. for this mission in the service of the nation. The group’s composer, Ian Broudie, then chose a humorous, almost parodic note.
“I didn’t want the song to be ‘Angleterrist’ or nationalist,” he told The Guardian in 1994. He wanted a song that “was more about what it is to be a football fan, which, to 90% is to lose. Most of a football fan’s life is made up of disappointment, “he added.
“Football’s Coming Home” has also proved to be premonitory, to the dismay of the English. “Everyone knows the result, we have already seen it a thousand times, we know very well, we are sure, that England will spoil everything, will screw everything up”, she announced even before the disillusionment in the semi-final, on penalties, against Germany, future winner of Euro-1996.
What future for this hymn to the eternal losers if the English were to win the tournament this time around?
• “It is a lovely country” : the Danish anthem printed on the jerseys
Despite a qualification for the knockout stages obtained in a snatch and a terrible blow to the head with the heartache of Christian Eriksen in their first match, the Danes held out in the face of adversity. During the three group matches, at home, the Danish supporters distinguished themselves in the stands of Copenhagen. And the fervor has not subsided since. You only have to see the triumphant reception given by the fans to their players after the victorious quarter-final.
Like the English, Danish supporters commune with music. Not around an original title, but well around their national anthem, “Der er et yndigt land” (“It is a charming country”). An anthem that the Danish equipment manufacturer Hummel, national flagship, has symbolically printed on the jerseys of the Scandinavians.
Hummel has indeed transcribed the sound waves on the tunics to bring supporters closer to the hearts of their players. The equipment manufacturer was based on a sound recording made during the qualifying match between Denmark and Ireland in June 2019, in Copenhagen.
“The sound of a crowded stadium, where you stand side by side singing the national anthem, is really something special,” Hummel boss Allan Vad Nielsen explains in Le Parisien. “It can thrill most of our fellow citizens, even those who never go to the stadium. The presence of supporters over the past year is one of the things that we have missed the most. In this way, the players and supporters will proudly wear the sound of Denmark. “
A way for Danish supporters to be close to their team despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, if 8,000 places are allocated to the Danes in the Wembley stadium for the semi-final, the foreign supporters cannot go to England and attend the match because of the health restrictions in force in London. The Danish federation has appealed to the 30,000 Danish nationals living in the United Kingdom to take up the torch from the fans who have stayed at home and defend the colors of the “charming country”.
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