Three words that will anger millions as they watch the 2021 European Football Championship final between England and Italy

If there are three words in the English language that could excite world football fans more than “the goal in question,” it’s one innocuous sentence: football is coming home.

You may have heard a lot from the start of Sunday’s Euro 2020 final at 3pm until a year late due to the pandemic, but a five-decade delay for fans of England, who won their boys’ World Cup. from an important tournament. in 1966.

London’s The Independent and BBC websites made headlines about the punishment after England’s 2-1 win over Denmark in extra time as the Three Lions headed for a European Championship match against Italy.

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This upsets those who claim that the game was not actually invented in England, who hate the team nicknamed “The Three Lions” for the logo on players’ shirts, and also those who have a There is definite political animosity which is greater than others for a great part of Britain’s population. .

“It’s a real lie,” writer Jade O’Brien once told BBC Sport Scotland. “The talent of the Scots, and especially the idea of ​​the clan system, football has given us over the past five hundred years. It is a purely Scottish sport.”

The origins of the game are widely debated, with some tracing it back to China some 2,500 years ago. However, it seems difficult to say which rules of football can be played today, which can be traced back to the formation of the FA in 1863. It took place in London, where Wembley Stadium is located, which would serve as the stadium for England. Italy final.

This is why many British fans consider their country to be the spiritual home of the sport, and this led to the creation of a song called The Three, before Euro 96 became the last major international tournament to be held entirely in England. goes. . Black. The most frequently repeated phrase in that song is “It’s Home”, followed by “House of Football”.

So you know the origin of the controversy, but perhaps why it is not so controversial.

The easiest way to understand the impact of “football homecoming” for American fans on football fans around the world is to think of how a similar pop culture phrase influenced the last century in the NFL.

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No one in the Dallas Cowboys organization stood up and announced their team “Team America”. It was a title awarded to the Cowboys in 1978 by NFL Films. One of the responsibilities of NFL Films is to produce a season summary for each team in the league. It is often difficult to make a good round trip in an unpleasantly finished season. In the 1978 season, the Cowboys lost the Super Bowl to the Pittsburgh Steelers by a narrow margin when one of their tight ends lost a certain touchdown pass that could have changed the game.

NFL Films would not have called the film “Ok Almost” or “Butterfingers”. The writers therefore focused on the widespread popularity of the televised team and the number of Cowboys fans who appeared to play outside the team and come up with “Team America”. Fans from other teams immediately protested, and they (and the journalists and commentators these fans follow) helped make it anywhere. Now, “Team America” ​​is ridiculed in the United States every day since then, as the Cowboys haven’t made it to the Super Bowl since 1995.

Now grab it and hit it in the world, and you’ll understand why “football’s homecoming” is so annoying to many. Presumably, at its core, it’s an expression of arrogance: it’s our game and you all are lucky enough to have inspired us to play it.

When asked what he thought of ‘home football’ ahead of the semi-final against England, Denmark goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel – who was his daily job with Premier League club Leicester City – replied: Our land first But were?”

However, the song itself is creative, endearing and above all, self-deprecating. It was not written by David Beckham, Gary Lineker or Paul Gascoigne. The comedians who wrote the film, David Baddell and Frank Skinner, and who played it alongside the Lightning Seeds, made no apparent effort to declare England the sole winner of all major international football tournaments.

Instead, he referred to “30 Years of Malice” in the song, which came after the 1966 World Cup title, and included this poem:

so many jokes, so many sarcasm

but all those who are close

wear you

in years

In fact, the really tense aspect of “Football Homecoming” or the fan base in England is embracing enduring sadness – the fatalism that “England will throw it, wipe it out”, as the song goes – is reminiscent of Red. …. ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. Sox before 2004 or Cubs before 2016. It’s like they only lose and lose in the big moments and they only lose catastrophically.

Sure, the Sox had Buckner and the Cubs had Bartman and England had a Beck penalty on the crossbar at Euro 2004 (above). Hey, the Detroit Lions have played the NFC Championship game once every 51 years, and Belgium saw their golden generation stumble from yet another major tournament without making it to the finals.

All the fans are suffering from each other. This is part of the deal. There is no home for athletic suffering. it is everywhere.