Because there are so many teams competing in Euro 2016, I am starting now with the posts looking at the teams and the music associated with them.

» Starting at the beginning with Group A: France, Romania, Albania and Switzerland.

I will highlight anything I find for the teams in the Euro 2016 campaign, but there will probably be more from previous competitions. If they exists though. Because of the amount ot teams competing, this year’s finals feature lots of unusual suspects and some of them might not have a song.

UPDATE: After doing some searching it has become apparent that songs done for European championship finals are few and far between, so I’ll be throwing a few in from World Cups.

» If you know of any 2016 tunes leave a comment at the end.

FRANCE

The hosts and Euro winners in 1984 (when they were hosts) and 2000. They’ve also been quarter finalists twice and semi-finalists once. The current France team is slowly coming back to being one of the strong teams, it took them time to rebuild after the World Cup 2010 debacle. Because of some key players missing for various reasons, Didier Deschamps might be forced to select some untried youngsters. The should still do very well because they are on home ground.

Luckily for us the French like to sing for their the national team. But songs done about their European exploits are harder to find. As far as I can see they were more enthusiastic about World Cups than Euros.

This is from 1984 (found via Bide & Musique, which is why they’ve overlaid the name of their site over the audio.)

France - Allez Les Blues - 1984

Allez Les Bleus – Allez Les Bleus (1984)

(Sidenote) You’ll notice the poetry loving goalkeeper Joël Bats in that team photo.

ADDITIONAL: Also via Bide & Musique is this by Yves de Roubaix which looks like it could have been the official theme song for the Euro 1984 tournament:

AND ONE MORE:

With thanks to my friend P.E. Minonzio who told me about this (so you can blame him, not me) released in time for Euro 2004:


ROMANIA

They’ve been to the euro championship finals four times before: 1984, 1996, 2000 and 2008. They’ve had some legendary names playing years ago but you’d have trouble naming a current player apart from Costel Pantilimon. And he’s not even the starting ‘keeper. Răzvan Raț, the veteran defender and captain might not make it to the finaks. Most of the national team squad ply their trade in the eastern european leagues.
As for any music associated with the Romanian national team. Bugger all. I did post this one back in 2008 and never found any more information. I have no idea who sings it or the title. It is just known as “Romanian anthem for Euro 2008”

» Romanian Anthem for Euro 2008


ALBANIA

Making their debut in the european championships. That’s right Albania qualified and Scotland didn’t.
Albania.

You’d be hard pressed to name a current Albanian national team player. Oh wait, Lorik Cana the captain. He plays for Nantes.

As for any music for any competitions. Well there’s none because until this one, they’ve never ever qualified for any major final. I repeat. Albania qualified. Scotland. Didn’t.


SWITZERLAND

They’ve been a consistant attendee for a few major tournaments now, but they never seem to progress past the group stages. This time though they have a team that could make it to the knockout stages. Especially given the group they are in. There’s many well known faces in the current team. The midfield of Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka should be a great one to watch. Their front men are Bundesliga regulars. A troublesome side to play against.

If it wasn’t for 45football.com (click that link, seriously) I woudn’t know about many, many football songs.
He describes this song released for the 1990 World Cup thusly:

“Very very very bad idea: take a terrible song and sing it in 3 of the 4 languages spoken in Switzerland. No wonder they had to wait 4 more years for the 1st World-cup-qualification since 1966.”

So there you have Group A.

As I said if you know of any Euro 2016 for any of the above teams, leave a comment.

Up next is obviously Group B.

One Reply to “A Song For Euros – Group A”

  1. A truly awful selection of songs. Well done, sir. I actually vaguely remember that France Euro ’84 tune. I was on an exchange trip to Roscoff and the boy I was staying with had it.

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