Žalgiris fans explained the word of the chant that caused the scandal

2026-09-04 12:25

The fans of Vilnius "Žalgiris" team clarified the meaning of the word in the new chant that caused a scandal.

According to the supporters, they were misunderstood – the word "foreigners," according to them, refers not to foreigners in general, but to Lithuania without the foreign occupying army.

"Given the great interest in our new song and especially the desire to decide for us what its words mean, we remind you of an important date. On August 31, 1993, the last unit of the foreign occupying army left Lithuanian territory.

The lyrics of the song that echoed for the first time in the stands last Sunday: "For Lithuania without foreigners, where freedom lives forever" are precisely about that – Lithuania without the foreign occupying army. The melody of the song is also not accidental. Its basis is "Avanti ragazzi di Buda," a song about the 1956 Hungarian uprising against Soviet oppression.

Therefore, we leave the attempts to attach these words to foreign footballers, someone’s nationality, war refugees, migrants, or any other convenient topic at that moment to those for whom the scandal is more important than the context.

When a war is happening just a few hundred kilometers from our borders, and the threat from the east has not gone away, we do not need to be reminded what the foreign occupying army means to Lithuania and what freedom means. We know what we sing. We know what we mean. And it is not for others to decide for us," the fans wrote.