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Even Alexa knows football’s coming home

Even Alexa knows football’s coming home

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England is winning the World Meme Cup

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England Media Access - 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia
Photo by Alex Morton/Getty Images

It’s been 52 years since England won the World Cup, but that hasn’t stopped English fans from dreaming of another victory ever since. Coming out of the group stages, England defeated Colombia earlier this week to edge the country even closer to the World Cup final. Home fans supporting England in Russia have all been chanting “it’s coming home,” and created internet memes that have left the rest of the world a little confused. Now, even Alexa is getting involved.

“It’s coming home,” is part of England’s official football (soccer) song Three Lions, that was originally introduced in 1996 for the Euro 96 football championship that was hosted in England. SB Nation has a great explainer on the song’s history, and it essentially refers to bringing a trophy back to the country where modern football was born in 1863.

The song has morphed into a meme for 2018, though. Reddit fans have created a dedicated section to the joke, and if you ask Alexa (in the UK) if football is coming home, it will reply with the following:

Alexa’s example is cute, but English football fans have been going even crazier on the internet this week. There are amusing videos of Russian President Vladimir Putin “playing” the song, old episodes of Friends cut to include the song, and even scenes from The Matrix. It’s the ultimate English spirit of getting excited for the national football team, only to be bitterly disappointed when it crashes out at the knock-out stages.

If England beat Sweden tomorrow and progress to the World Cup semi finals, expect the roar of “it’s coming home” to get even louder on the streets of English cities and the meme creators to flood Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit with even more hilarious creations.