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.Football’s Coming HomeThe English football public has a certain reputation globally. There is an assumption of arrogance, of high expectations, of going into every major tournament presuming their team will win it. It has become an integral part of how the world sees the English game.But speak to the country’s fans and you will get a different picture. And not just to the people who throw pints in the air whenever England score at a major tournament. But those who travel the world watching this team, who show up home and away, who never miss a match, and will not this summer either.For these supporters — those who invest the most time, money and energy into following Thomas Tuchel’s side — the picture feels rather different. They love this team — they often say they are “addicted” to following them everywhere — but there is very little hubris about how they will do in the summer. In fact, the views of the five England fans who spoke to The Athletic are dominated by clear-eyed realism and learned pessimism.“I don’t think we’re any more or less confident than any other nation,” says Johnnie Lowery. “I don’t think we’ll win it. But I’m naturally pessimistic. I’m like this with Sutton United as well. I don’t expect anything, because then I’m not disappointed. I like to go in with low expectations. And if we exceed them, then it’s a nice bonus. For a lot of England fans, it feels almost cursed, impossible that we could win anything. And that won’t change until we do.”Chris Cooper, another England fan who travels far and wide to watch them, sees it the same way. “I don’t think I know anyone who is particularly arrogant,” he says. “This is a bit of an urban myth that has built up over the years, that we’re arrogant.” And when these England fans discuss how they rate the team’s chances at the World Cup this summer, the challenges of the heat and the schedule, it is impossible to disagree with their analysis of themselves.The question, then, is why so many people would still say that England fans have this arrogant expectation about the quality of their own team? Perhaps part of the answer comes from the huge global reach of “football’s coming home”, the chorus line from Three Lions by Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds, a single recorded for Euro ’96 that still has a huge cultural reach 30 years on.Optimism around the England team reached new levels at Euro ’96 (Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)It is no secret that many people hear “football’s coming home” and see it as a boast, or a prediction, a triumphalist insistence that England were about to win whichever major tournament was underway. Many people hear in it a sense that England view winning as the rightful outcome, and that anyone else winning is somehow wrong. After knocking England out of the 2018 World Cup, for example, Croatia’s players were keen to throw that line back in their face afterwards. Italy built their own slogan out of it after winning the final of Euro 2020 at Wembley.And yet England fans themselves simply do not see the song that way.“The whole point of it is looking back on past glories and melancholy,” explains Lowery. “It’s not a triumphant song at all. The idea of the song — ‘Jules Rimet still gleaming’ — is looking back at the 1966 World Cup rather than talking about winning the Euros. It looks back at England’s past glory, with the idea that there is always hope. The song isn’t arrogant.