As part of our Language of Soccer World Cup series, The Athletic is speaking to supporters of all 48 nations competing at the 2026 edition to capture their unique football culture, distilled into a single phrase. You can read the articles in one place here.Kanna pa – Again and againWhat started as a song about getting the beers in has become a symbol of what it means to support the Swedish national team.“Kanna pa Kanna pa” is a phrase which roughly translates to “keep the beers coming”. It was sung in the stands at Djurgardens, one of the country’s oldest clubs, in the 1970s. Before the 2016 European Championship in France, fans and media personalities Gusten Dahlin and Thomas Wilbacher adapted it for the national team — and the chant stuck.English football fans may recognise the melody from “Allez Allez Allez Oh”. The Sweden version includes the line “We are from Svealand with 100,000 men”. Svealand is the core region of Sweden from which the nation developed. It ends with fans chanting: “Hear our joyful song.”For Lukas Hermansson — a 27-year-old Sweden supporter who is one of the many travelling to the United States for this summer’s World Cup as part of the fan group Camp Sweden — a more meaningful translation of “Kanna pa Kanna pa” is “again and again”.“We’re not the best national team, but you can often look back on things you have lost or even won,” Hermansson tells The Athletic. “You just have to take the next step and the next game for what it is. Just move on — what’s done is done.”This Sweden team embody that phrase. When former Chelsea, West Ham United and Brighton & Hove Albion coach Graham Potter took charge in October, they were bottom of their World Cup qualifying group with just two games left. Potter’s predecessor Jon Dahl Tomasson — who Hermansson only refers to as “the Danish coach” — had overseen a campaign in which they picked up one point from their first four matches.But Sweden were guaranteed a play-off place whatever happened thanks to their 2024-25 Nations League ranking. After losing 4-1 to Switzerland and drawing with Slovenia in their remaining qualifiers, they beat Ukraine in their play-off semi-final thanks to a Viktor Gyokeres hat-trick. They were drawing 2-2 with Poland in the final in Stockholm until Gyokeres forced home an 88th-minute winner to send them to North America.“That’s a Kanna pa goal,” says Alan Dogan, a 32-year-old restaurateur from Uppsala, north of Stockholm, who is also following Sweden to the tournament. “Because he (Gyokeres) just pushes the Polish defender away and shoots at goal. That’s Kanna pa, you take what’s yours.”