Technically, the national anthem of Spain is not sung in Spanish.

That’s because there’s nothing to sing. Owing to the country’s divisive history and fragmented regionalism, an instrumental-only anthem is used to avoid contentious debate.

That means Spaniards can’t break into song whenever national pride strikes them — they have to just hum or da-da-da the song’s melody. At least there’s no running joke material when a pre-game singer flubs the lyrics, as is the case in the States.

There are efforts to add words to Madrid’s theme music:

Meanwhile, Telecinco, the television station, conducted an online poll and came up with its winning entry, by the poet and journalist Enrique Hernandez-Luike. It’s a piece of “simple metaphors and accessible musicality,” Telecinco said.

It opens with a paean to “Mother Homeland, arms entwined in a sign of peace,” and invokes the flag, freedom, the constitution, “an ensemble of cultures” and “the hand of Europe.”

One thing it does not mention: Spain.