“The moment they anoint him.” It is at that precise moment, at the moment in which the King Charles III of England will be united with the consecrated oil that gives way to its coronation as monarch, when the Champions League anthem will be played in Westminster Abbey. “Is my favorite anthem going to be heard?” asks Antonio García Ferreras. Indeed, the anthem of the main European football competition will be the one that sounds during what will be the first coronation in the United Kingdom in more than 70 years, as explained in Al Rojo Vivo by the political scientist Ana Polo, author of ‘La reina . The incredible life of Elizabeth II’.

This anthem, which resounds on televisions around the world, will be the one that puts the soundtrack of the “sacred moment of the coronation” of Carlos III, although his relationship with soccer is null, really. “This is known in England as ‘Zadok, the priest’ and is one of the coronation hymns that Handel wrote for George II in 1727,” explains the writer. George Frideric Händel is the author of some of the best-known coronation hymns in the United Kingdom, although there is not just one. Handel is the author of four of them, all commissioned for that coronationalthough they have become the usual ones in the following ones.

Besides ‘Zadok, the priest’, Handel’s other three coronation hymns are ‘Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened’, ‘The King Shall Rejoice’ and ‘My Heart Is Inditing’ which, although all separate works, were published separately. joint way. Although the choral piece was created expressly for the coronation of George II, they have continued to be used in subsequent ones, but “There are very few coronations” UEFA decided to also use it for their Champions League.

In 1992, the English composer Tony Britten was chosen by the institution to adapt the musical composition that would become the anthem of the Champions League, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Academy Choir of Saint Martin in the Fields. What sounds every time a Champions League game is going to start is the chorus, although all television channels are obliged to broadcast a short version of it before and after each match.