Smiling from ear to ear then taking a deep breath, before giving another grin, Jacob Murphy, the Newcastle midfielder, felt in wonderland on the San Siro pitch last Tuesday, before facing AC Milan (0-0). For his first C1 match at the age of 28, the Englishman experienced a waking dream during the playing of the anthem.
For many players, these few notes give shivers and are synonymous with the move to the big leagues. The Champions League being the most beautiful and biggest competition that a European football club can compete in.
Tony Britten, grassroots rugby enthusiast
The anthem was created in 1992, at the same time as the name “Champions League” to succeed “European Champion Clubs’ Cup”. A decision taken by UEFA, organizer of this annual competition which wanted to give a makeover to this flagship football event. The marketing team of the body based in Switzerland called on the British composer, Tony Britten.
During this period, this rugby enthusiast originally wrote a lot of music for drama series and advertisements. It was by proposing the idea of a choir – accepted by UEFA – that this former graduate of the Royal College of Music (higher music school in London) submitted various works including “Zadok the Priest” by Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759) which pleased the leaders.
A hymn sung in three different languages
In an interview given to West France in 2021, Tony Britten justified the choice of this anthem created in 1727 for the coronation of King George II of Great Britain: “The influence of this music was mainly in the orchestration, more than anything else. In the strings, the high trumpets. I didn’t really take Handel’s music itself, I took his “feeling”. Then there are the lyrics. I asked the UEFA team if there would be lyrics in the anthem, and they said: Oh, we don’t know. Maybe something very strong, about the “best”. I agreed, then they asked me if I could do it in three languages. The official UEFA ones, which are French, English and German.”
He was therefore inspired by the music of Handel and then wrote the lyrics which were sung by the British choir of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Note that when the anthem plays on the pitch, only the last verse and the last heart are emitted for a duration of 30 to 40 seconds: “They are the best, Sie sind die Besten, These are the champions” then “Die Meister, Die Besten, The great teams, The champions”.
