Declan Rice and Cole Palmer proved that Love Island is not just for the girls on Saturday, as they made a surprising reference to the show after England advanced to the Euros 2024 semi-finals.
The Three Lions narrowly triumphed over Switzerland on penalties in Dusseldorf, cementing their place in the semi-finals.
And as the team took to social media to celebrate their win, Rice and Palmer showed themselves to be secret fans of the ITV2 reality show.
Rice shared a photo to Instagram of him, Jude Bellingham and Ivan Toney cheering on the pitch after the match, captioned: ‘Togetherness. Semis we coming!!!’
And among the hordes of fans taking to the comments to congratulate him, Palmer wrote: ‘WHOS EMMAAAAAAAAA’.
Declan Rice (pictured) and Cole Palmer proved that Love Island is not just for the girls on Saturday, as they made a surprising reference to the show after England advanced to the Euros 2024 semi-finals
The Three Lions narrowly triumphed over Switzerland on penalties in Dusseldorf, cementing their place in the semi-finals
And as the team took to social media to celebrate their win, Rice and Palmer showed themselves to be secret fans of the ITV2 reality show
In response, Rice was quick to reply: ‘who’s EMMMMAAAAR’ with a string of laughing emojis.
While some football fans may have been confused by the comments, those who had been keeping up to date with Love Island caught the reference straight away, and were left in stitches.
The quote was from a viral clip of Nicole Samuels on the show earlier this week, shouting: ‘Who is Emma?’ during a steamy challenge.
With the Islanders split into the main villa and Casa Amor, they were tasked with doing risky dares to compete to get their villa a party.
And the saucy game involved plenty of raunchy moments, including a dare that said: ‘The youngest boy must snog the girl he fancies the most for five seconds.’
Ciaran Davies – who is coupled up with Nicole – wasted no time in running straight to new bombshell Emma Milton and sharing a passionate kiss.
After securing the win, the main villa was told that Ciaran and Emma had beaten them, leaving Nicole shocked.
And as Emma’s name continually kept popping up in the challenge, she began more and more aggravated, repeatedly shouting: ‘Who’s Emma?’
Rice shared a photo to Instagram of him, Jude Bellingham and Ivan Toney cheering on the pitch after the match, captioned: ‘Togetherness. Semis we coming!!!’
And among the hordes of fans taking to the comments to congratulate him, Palmer wrote: ‘WHOS EMMAAAAAAAAA’ while Rice replied: ‘who’s EMMMMAAAAR’
The moment sent viewers into hysterics and soon went viral, with fans flooding social media with memes, jokes and lip-syncing videos.
It’s not the first time the England players have revealed their guilty pleasure for watching Love Island between games.
During the last Euros, Jack Grealish shared a snap of the team watching the dating show in a huge cinema room in their accomodation.
While last week Ezri Konsa admitted that the players ‘love’ the hit show and watch it every night to lift their spirits.
He said: ‘Love Island — we’re big on that. The boys love it. Every night, a few of the boys come into my room and we watch it.’
But it may not come as good news to their manager, as Gareth Southgate previously revealed he is not a fan of the show after his children Mia and Flynn became obsessed with it in 2017.
He told the Evening Standard: ‘If I could stomach what my kids have been watching for the last two weeks, then I would have been watching Love Island.
‘But I drew myself away from that and have managed to tear myself away from it because I don’t think I could stomach it.’