The Euros remind me again of national anthems—like an archaic, stilted Eurovision Song Contest. Italy’s song is a mini-opera, and it’s hard to beat the exuberance of Brazil’s anthem, or the drama of the haka. La Marseillaise (1792) is very fine too:

As to the German anthem, Joseph Haydn composed Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser in 1797, in honour of Francis II of the Austro-Hungarian empire (wiki here and here). After the song became the national anthem of Germany from 1841, the lyrics continued to go through several revisions under successive regimes.

Written in response to Britain’s plodding God save the king * (superior suggestions here), it’s among several melodies of Haydn said to be inspired by a Croatian folk-song. The song alone outranks the British anthem, but Haydn soon elevated it as the theme for variations in the transcendent slow movement of his Kaiser quartet—tastefully played here by the Quatuor mosaïques:

With All Due Respect, renditions at football internationals don’t quite rise to such heights. But of course, chamber music and football matches serve different functions…

For some more exquisite Haydn, see here. 

* My usual homage to Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “I didn’t know we ’ad a king—I thought we were an autonomous collective”: