Equivalent of sarcastic song "non ti preoccupare, l'importante è partecipare" among Italian football supporters

Is there an equivalent in English or American sports culture of the sarcastic song that originated among Italian football supporters, that they sing to the losing opposition team? It's like this:

[Milanista/Interista] non ti preoccupare, l'importante è partecipare

which can be roughly translated to:

Don't worry, the important thing is to participate

Any ideas?


Solution 1:

It's targeted at an single player, rather than the team, but British terraces often ring out with...

Why was he born so beautiful?
Why was he born at all?
He’s no fucking use to anyone
He’s no fucking use at all.

...which as this link indicates, was sufficiently well-known to be referenced by an MP back in 1928. It's particularly likely if a player misses an easy shot at goal - in the case of a penalty, sometimes with supporters on both sides laying in to the hapless player who missed.

Obviously it's easily adapted to the pluralised Why Were They Born So Beautiful?, so that's not uncommon either.

Solution 2:

In the US, it's fairly common to hear Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye played on the loudspeakers or chanted at the losing team. The US sports culture has less singing in general than the Europeans, though - so it's not like it's ubiquitous.

Solution 3:

I don't know of any chant that makes that particular barbed reference to the "winning isn't everything" idea.

However, the general practice of sarcastic chants is very well known throughout Britain and Ireland.

"You're not singing any more!" for example remarks on the lack of more positive singing and chanting that will happen when your team is doing badly, and you've given up hope".

Some target particular players of another team, or even of your own team if you aren't happy with them, e.g. "He's bald! He's shit! He gets a game when no-one's fit! Pascal Cygan, Pascal Cygan!"

Some such can be repurposed easily. While a particular goal-keeper was the first target of:

Who ate all the pies?

Who ate all the pies?

You fat bastard,

You fat bastard,

You ate all the pies!

It can work for anyone whose fitness is waning.

Of course the players and supporters aren't the only target:

Who's your father, who's your father?

Who's your father, referee?

You don't have one,

'cos you're a bastard,

You're a bastard, referee!

In the days when terrace violence was more common, some would make outright threats like "You're going home in a bleedin' ambulance" or turning Liverpool's anthem "You'll never walk alone" into "You'll never walk again". (Targeting such threats specifically against Liverpool became something even many football hooligans considered beyond the pale after the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 fans died, and violence among fans generally declined since then).

Many others I won't quote, for being extremely racist or homophobic, related to incidents where individual players where accused of rape or sexual assault, had some sort of relationship with people involved in organised crime, were dating a celebrity, had had an affair with a celebrity, had broken up with a celebrity, had been diagnosed as scizophrenic, had been diagnosed with cancer, and otherwise just aren't very nice.

But the one I can think of that best matches yours sarcastically offering a pleasantry, is a variant on "you're not singing anymore" that sarcastically offers to do so for them. Simply:

Shall we sing,

Shall we sing,

Shall we sing a song for you?