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The badge on the England shirt is older than nearly every nation playing in this World Cup. Three gold lions on a field of red, the royal arms of England. Richard the Lionheart, who cut down Saladin's men in the Holy Land, set them on his great seal in 1198. Long before they were a football badge, they were a banner of war. The same lions flew over English armies for centuries. The standard men marched behind them, fought under them, and died beneath them. At Crécy and Agincourt, the arms of England were carried into the worst of it. Every king bore them. Edward III quartered them with the lilies of France when he claimed her crown, and still the three lions held the shield. Through the Plantagenet, Tudor and Stuart dynasties, England's lions did not move. Then, on 30 November 1872, England met Scotland in the first official international football match the world had ever seen. The men who walked out wore three lions on their chest. The banner men once followed into battle, men now carried them onto the field. The same lions and the same England. That is what these three lions have always done, gathering a people behind one shield. They held men together when the stakes were life and death. Eight hundred years on, they hold a nation still. Three lions, one country. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 𓃬 𓃬 𓃬 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿