The thing you have to understand about being French is that winning at football is just something we do. My very first memory of watching a game was of being six years old and on holiday with my parents.
I should have gone to bed but I was allowed to stay up; when Zidane scored France’s second goal, I was so pleased and tense and excited that I managed to rip off a part of the rattan couch I’d been holding on to. I got sent to my room, and missed the third goal. This was in 1998.
In 2018, I watched the final of the World Cup with some French friends in a pub. One of them ate a lemon sole in the pub as the game was beginning, which struck me as quite comically Gallic. When we won, the British DJ panicked and put on some Edith Piaf. The whole terrace, drunk and ecstatic, found it incredibly funny.
I was 26 that summer, and had already witnessed my country win multiple major tournaments. Again, not to rub it in but that’s what we do: we’re good at football.
Still, that isn’t the only thing that happened in 2018. As the World Cup was beginning, I remember noticing that English friends were getting excited about a certain Gareth Southgate. He was, allegedly, an altogether pleasant bloke, and always wore this neat waistcoat.
I didn’t pay attention to it at first, because I was a French person living in Britain: of course I didn’t care about England’s team. If anything, I was actively happy to watch them lose. I did get sucked in, in the end, though I wasn’t happy about it.
“Absolutely raging at how utterly lovely and decent Gareth Southgate seems to be”, I tweeted that summer. “I don’t want this, don’t make me earnestly support England, I don’t want to”. I managed to hold my own that year, just about. The 2021 Euros was when the dam broke for good.
I couldn’t actually tell you when I realised that I’d gone in too deep, but there is one moment that sticks in my mind. It was the morning of the semi-final against Denmark; the sun was shining and I was on my way to work.
I got off the tube and put on Three Lions – a song I’d only knowingly heard for the first time that month. About two minutes later, there were tears in my eyes. I just wanted us to beat those stupid Danes so badly. It’s all I’d ever wanted.
Of course, we did beat them in the end, but we all know what happened after that. It was crushing, but, well, it happens. Getting to a final was honourable; there’d always be next time, I thought.
Two years ago, England went to the World Cup and lost in the quarter-finals, though I didn’t see it as I boycotted the tournament, held in Qatar. What I was waiting for was this; the 2024 Euros.
Our boys won and won and won and, for a while, I really thought we were going to make it. My friends didn’t, though; they didn’t feel they could afford to feel hopeful. That’s what being an England fan is, they told me.
I tried to ignore them but obviously they were right. We won and won, then we lost. Again. That’s the English way.
On the morning of the final, I’d woken up sick with nerves. By the time the game began, I was still stressed but, on some deeper level, more serene. I knew deep down that we were probably not going to win, and I knew that it was fine.
Back in 2021, the Euros final loss ruined my mood for days afterwards; this time, I woke up feeling a bit disappointed, but mostly fine. Winning would have been nice, but it was probably never going to happen.
That’s the thing foreigners don’t get about England supporters, I’ve come to realise. “It’s coming home” isn’t meant to be brash, and it isn’t even the most important part of the song. Instead, that’s a line from the 1998 version: “We still believe, we still believe…”
