AHEAD of the Euro 2024 final between England and Spain, journalist and broadcaster Iain Dale felt he knew exactly who was displaying the most passion ahead of the fixture.
He said the English players were singing God Save the King with “gusto” while the Spanish players appeared to remain completely silent during their anthem.
He tweeted: "What contrast between the two teams. Every England player belted out the national anthem with gusto. Not a single Spanish player opened his mouth."
But as he shared some early criticism about England’s opponents, he was quickly left red-faced.
The Spanish national anthem – Marcha Real – is one of only a handful in the world that doesn’t have official lyrics. Oh my, it's awkward.
The other three nations to have lyric-less anthems are Bosnia and Herzegovina, San Marino and Kosovo.
Realising his blunder, readers added “context” to his post on Twitter/X saying he was “mistaken” as the Spanish anthem is “purely instrumental”, with a link proved to information about the military tune on Classic FM’s website.
Much like England's players will be saying to themselves this morning after losing 2-1 to Spain, every day is a school day Iain.
The Jouker would certainly advocate for the English anthem to have no words, what a novel idea!
