The long-awaited UEFA Euro 2020 football championship took place between the 11th of June and the 11th of July, in venues provided by eleven UEFA countries. One of the surprise teams of the championship was the Danish, who made it to the semifinals.
We investigated what the Danish people on social media have shared about the tournament and their national team. To do so, we collected online mentions along two keywords: one was the simple and widely used “EURO2020” hashtag, and the other represented the national team of Denmark, the Red-White. For them, Danish people used several hashtags, but the most popular ones were #ForDanmark, #FlagForDanmark, #EnDelAfNogetStørre and #Herrelandsholdet. Of course, the national team also had their official social media channels, posts from which were all included in the analysis.
The championship had over 51 thousand public mentions from the beginning of June to the middle of July, while the national team was close to that with 48 thousand. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were the three social media platforms where the conversations took place – more than half (54%) of the #EURO2020 posts came from Twitter, while the online discourse on the national team was more Facebook (43%) and Instagram (30%) heavy. One look at the chart showing the daily number of mentions reveals that both keywords had mention peaks on match days, and they were increasing in volume as the Danish national team marched forward in the championship.
In June, the national team played Finland on the 12th, Belgium on the 17th, Russia on the 21st and Wales on the 26th, but attention and mentions reached the top in July, during the quarterfinal against Czechia and of course the semifinal against England. After the Danish team’s elimination, there was a smaller peak for #EURO2020 on the day of the final, but then mention numbers naturally dwindled.
For the Danish team, EURO2020 brought a tragedy on their very first match, when Christian Eriksen collapsed on the field and had to be resuscitated. It is no wonder that the most engaging post in connection with the team was the one where he messaged fans through the national team’s Facebook page, thanking them for their support and sharing news about his recovery. The topic was of course one of the most engaging on Twitter as well, with UEFA EURO 2020’s page sharing updates on his situation. Non-profit organization Børns Vilkår (Children’s Terms) compiled a list on how to talk to any child who witnessed the potentially traumatizing event to help them process it. It was also shared on the national team’s Facebook page.
The national team’s Herrelandsholdet Instagram and Facebook pages are responsible for the majority of fans’ engagement, especially the posts celebrating the overall achievement of the team, and cheering them on before and after the semifinal. The second most engaging Instagram page for the topic was DR Sporten (though they are not exclusive to football), while on Facebook, comedian PELLE made some very popular videos. The vote on Twitter for the song to be played at Wembley Stadium was really trendy among Danish users as well, so the song selector tweet got many retweets and votes from them, too.
When we look at the key topics of discussion, it becomes evident that the prevailing mood was positive in all of them – what is more, “joy” appeared on the top 10 list. “Goal” was also a much-discussed topic, with Andreas Christensen’s cannon shot nominated for goal of the round even. Tickets were not so easy to come by due to pandemic regulations, but finally on the 4th of July, a favorable announcement was made in this regard.