The World Cup songs, and which one is the best, is a debate that happens every four years, whether we engage with it or not. Since 1990, FIFA – the governing body of international football – has commissioned pop artists to bring their biggest tournament to life through their music. In the process, some of the most iconic songs have been produced and left and undeniable imprint in soccer fans around the world.
With the 2026 FIFA World Cup about to begin, I wanted to explore the cover stories behind the best World Cup songs. What I have found is that music has been part of the competition dating all the way to 1962, and every time a new World Cup song or anthem drops, there’s a story about connection, impact, legacy and culture.
Culture is precisely where this curiosity started. Because the songs of the World Cup are the ones that have made the tournament part of the pop culture landscape around the world. Even non football fans end up humming or dancing along to these tunes, that in the stands of every stadium resonate through the chants of football-fever supporters.
So, in the spirit of finding the best stories to come out of this wonderful mix of soccer and music, I dropped an episode of my podcast Uncovering the Cover to explore why the sport has become part of pop culture’s legacy.
This is the first episode of a three-part series exploring the music that has put soccer, or football, at the center of world pop culture.
On May 14, 2026, just weeks before the FIFA World Cup kicked off across the United States, Canada, and Mexico — Shakira and Burna Boy released “Dai Dai,” the official anthem of the largest World Cup in history. It was Shakira’s fourth World Cup song. It was also the latest chapter in one of pop music’s strangest, richest, and most under-examined stories: how a sporting event became a global music phenomenon, and how the songs of the World Cup quietly “covered” an entire international culture.
In this episode of Uncovering the Cover, I trace the full arc of World Cup music — from a 1986 Cameroonian military satire that became the most-streamed FIFA song in history, to Luciano Pavarotti turning a 1924 Puccini aria into a 1990 pop hit, to Ricky Martin’s 1998 performance that single-handedly cracked open the Latin Explosion, to an Argentine schoolteacher rewriting an old breakup song that ended up being sung by Lionel Messi himself as Argentina lifted the trophy in Qatar.
This is a story about borrowed melodies, contested authorship, corporate anthems, fan-made revolutions, and how music has done what almost nothing else in the modern world can do: unite billions of people across language, geography, and politics. If “Vogue” covered fashion, World Cup songs covered international football. Welcome to soccer’s greatest cover job.
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DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any artist, label, or organization mentioned. All music samples are used for educational and commentary purposes under fair use doctrine.
FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE:
Cold Open
[Open cold. Crowd noise rising. A stadium chant somewhere in the distance.]
In 1986, four Cameroonian soldiers walked into a studio and recorded a song that mocked colonial generals.
Twenty-four years later, that song would become the most-streamed World Cup song in human history.
But the person who sang it wasn’t Cameroonian.
It became the official song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, played in South Africa, and the singer had never even been to South Africa before.
However, on the day she performed it live — to a billion people watching — the world barely knew what the words actually meant.
[Waka Waka.]
When a World Cup comes to town, millions of people with so many different backgrounds, behaviors and traditions flood the streets of the host nation. The cultures are mixed, the chants are contagious, the parties are happening in every corner, and right in the middle of it, there’s one thing all of those cultures share in common… apart from their love for football. Because while each individual group is supporting their own national team, the music they rally around is the one that truly brings all of us together. This is the first episode of a three-part series on how much music has had to do with making football, soccer, calcio, however you want to call it, an integral part of our culture around the world. Next week we’ll dive into the how fans have created their own football anthems borrowing from popular music, and the week after we’ll look at how women’s football has its own music subculture that’s authentically unique in its own.
But, today, in this first episode, we’ll explore how songs become the memory of the most-watched event on Earth, the men’s World Cup.
How an opera written in 1924 became the soundtrack of English football.
How a Puerto Rican kid from a boy band accidentally launched the Latin Explosion in pop music following the 1998 World Cup in France.
How a Somali refugee’s song about war became Coca-Cola’s biggest anthem.
And how, in 2021, an Argentine schoolteacher sat down at his desk, rewrote the lyrics of a ska band’s breakup song — and ended up writing a song that Lionel Messi would sing while holding the World Cup trophy.
[Muchachooooos]
We’ll cover everything about how soccer, or football, can’t live without music… and how the culture surrounding the biggest event on the planet has always been covered by music from every corner of the world. Even now, as we’re preparing for the biggest World Cup ever staged in the United States, Mexico and Canada, some have said that Shakira and has once again saved the World Cup, with the release of “Dai Dai” featuring Burna Boy — the official song of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
It’s being broadcast to nearly half the planet.
And it’s the latest entry in one of the strangest, richest stories in modern pop music.
[Music swells. Cold open closing.]
Because if football is the biggest sport on the planet — the World Cup songs covered something even bigger.
They covered an entire global culture. And almost nobody noticed how. Until now…
[Transition to standard intro.]
Welcome to Uncovering the Cover, the podcast that explores the hidden stories behind music’s greatest transformations. Today, we have the story of the songs of the men’s FIFA World Cup — a story about how borrowed melodies, contested authorship, opera arias, Caribbean rhythms, and stadium chants quietly built the soundtrack of the most-watched event on Earth… and how, for almost a century, music has been the one thing capable of covering an entire culture.
Act 1 — Before the Anthem: How Football Found Its Voice (1962–1990)
HOOK (Act 1 Open — Clip-Ready)
There is a 1924 Italian opera about a princess who beheads her suitors. In the third act, a prince sings a song called “Nessun Dorma” — which translates, roughly, to “Let No One Sleep.” In 1990, the BBC decided to make that song — a 66-year-old opera aria, sung by a 54-year-old Italian tenor named Luciano Pavarotti — the official theme of their World Cup coverage. It hit number two on the UK pop charts. Number two. Above almost every pop song that summer, including artists like New Kids on the Block, Roxette, Snap!, and Madonna. And for the first time in modern history, a man who had spent his entire career performing in opera houses became a global pop star — not because he changed. Because football changed.
But.. let’s back up.
For most of the 20th century, the World Cup did not really have music. It had marches. It had national anthems. It had the polite, brassy fanfares broadcasters threw together a week before kickoff. There was no Shakira. No Pitbull. No Pavarotti. Football and pop music lived on different planets.
The first official FIFA World Cup song most people can name is “El Rock del Mundial,” (The Rock of the World Cup) by Los Ramblers, from Chile in 1962. It’s a charming little rock-and-roll number, but it did not change the world.
[EL ROCK DEL MUNDIAL]
The 1970s and early 1980s gave us mostly forgettable host-country jingles. The most famous song to come out from world football before 1990 wasn’t even an official anthem — it came from a warm up session by Diego Maradona in the lead up to the 1989 UEFA Cup Semifinal, where Napoli hosted FC Bayern. In the clip which has resurfaced recently and become a viral sensation, Maradona is seeing juggling the ball to the tune of “Live if Life”, a hit from five years earlier by an Austrian pop rock band named Opus.
[LIFE IS LIVE]
And then, one year later after that Maradona clip, in the same country, music and football began a beautiful lasting marriage.
There are two songs that defined Italia 90, the 14th edition of the World Cup in 1990. One was the official song: “Un’estate Italiana” — “An Italian Summer” — known to everyone in Italy as “Notti Magiche,” “Magic Nights.” It was sung by Edoardo Bennato and Gianna Nannini. And here is the part that already starts telling our story: it was composed by Giorgio Moroder.
If that name doesn’t ring a bell — Moroder is the Italian producer who basically invented disco. He produced Donna Summer. He scored the movie Top Gun, where he also gave us the song “Take My Breath Away.” And FIFA — who didn’t really know what to do with music yet — handed him the keys.
He wrote a stadium-sized pop-rock anthem with electronic shimmer, layered it under footage of a sun-drenched Italian summer, and let two of Italy’s most distinctive voices — a smoky rock contralto, and a Neapolitan satirist — fight it out over the chorus. The result was the first official World Cup song that actually felt like the World Cup. It went to number one in Italy and Switzerland. People still sing it in Rome today. The Italian national team sang it in their hotel after winning the European Championship in 2020.
[UN’ESTATE ITALIANA]
But that’s not the song that changed everything.
In June 1990, the BBC had to pick a theme song for their World Cup coverage. They had no budget. They had no time. So, since the World Cup was being held in Italy, a producer suggested they just use… an old opera recording from 1972 of Pavarotti singing one aria. That aria — “Nessun Dorma” — would, by the end of the summer, become the second-best-selling single in the United Kingdom. It would sell more than almost every Britpop song that year. And it would launch the most successful classical music act of all time: The Three Tenors, a trio of opera singers that was very successful in the years after, composed by Pavarotti and Spaniards Plácido Domingo and José Carreras. The single greatest cross-over in modern music history started because a TV producer needed an opening title sequence.
[NESSUN DORMA]
Here’s what happened. Pavarotti had recorded “Nessun Dorma” — an aria from Puccini’s opera Turandot — back in 1972, with the London Philharmonic, conducted by the great Zubin Mehta. It was a beautiful recording. It was sitting on a shelf. Nobody outside the opera world had heard it.
When the BBC played it over their World Cup intro — a montage of slow-motion goals, sweat, crowds, agony, ecstasy — something cracked open. Because the song is about a prince waiting through one long, sleepless night to prove he is worthy of love. And football is also about waiting through long, sleepless nights to prove you are worthy of something — a result, a trophy, a memory.
That summer, England reached the semifinal, and lost on penalties to West Germany. Midfielder Paul Gascoigne cried on the pitch. Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle missed their kicks, and in the background — through every replay, every freeze-frame, every BBC promo — Pavarotti held that final note. “Vincerò.” I will win.
[NESSUN DORMA]
It cratered. The single shot to number two in the UK. Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and José Carreras performed their now-legendary Three Tenors concert on the eve of the World Cup final at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. That concert went on to become the best-selling classical album of all time. And without that World Cup, without the BBC, without Gascoine’s tears — none of it happens.
Pavarotti himself sang “Nessun Dorma” at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino. It was his last public performance before he died. By then, the aria belonged to football as much as to opera. A 1924 song about a prince in Beijing had been quietly, irreversibly transformed into the unofficial anthem of the world’s biggest sport.
And FIFA was paying attention.
Because here’s what Italia 90 proved — and what every World Cup since has tried to copy: when football collides with the right song, it doesn’t just amplify the music. It rewires the meaning of it. A 1924 opera aria becomes a soccer anthem. A pop song becomes a generational memory. Music doesn’t soundtrack the World Cup. The World Cup absorbs the music.
[Music dips. A pause.]
And once FIFA realized that — once they understood they were not just selling a tournament, they were selling a soundtrack — everything changed. But the real revolution wasn’t necessarily coming from FIFA’s official anthems. It was coming from unexpected sources, like a 26-year-old Puerto Rican kid who had never had a hit in the United States — and a Cameroonian military marching song that nobody in the global music industry even knew existed.
We’ll get into that, right after this.
[Cliffhanger sting. Ad break or transition.]
Act 2 — When the World Started Singing (1994–2010)
HOOK (Act 2 Open — Clip-Ready)
Welcome back. By 1998, Enrique Martín Morales, better known as Ricky Martin, had recorded four solo albums. All in Spanish. In the United States, he had only charted exactly one song on the Billboard Hot 100 — “María”, at number 88. He was famous in Latin America, but in the U.S. and the rest of the world, he was essentially unknown. Then he was asked to write a song for the 1998 World Cup in France. He recorded it with Desmond Child — the guy who wrote “Livin’ on a Prayer” for Bon Jovi. He performed it at the World Cup final to a global audience. Eight months later, he performed it at the Grammys in tight leather pants. The audience gave him a standing ovation, and that performance made him the biggest music star in the world. He single-handedly opened the door for what we now call the Latin Explosion. The song was “La Copa de la Vida/The Cup of Life”, and it was, at the time, the biggest Spanish-language song the United States had ever heard. Let’s dive into how this happened…
[LA COPA DE LA VIDA]
To understand how big “La Copa de la Vida” was, you have to understand what came before it.
In 1994, the United States hosted the World Cup for the first time ever. The official song was “Gloryland” a Daryl Hall track. It was fine. It didn’t move the needle. The event itself was a success, but the song didn’t even chart on Billboard… And FIFA noticed.
By 1998, FIFA had a different idea. France was hosting. The tournament was about to become bigger than ever — 32 teams for the first time. And FIFA wanted a song that wasn’t just background music. They wanted a soundtrack. They wanted something that felt like the whole world arriving at one party.
And, so they picked that 26-year-old Puerto Rican, named Ricky Martin.
Martin had done his time. He’d been in Menudo, a very successful Spanish boy band, as a kid. He’d been on General Hospital. He’d had a Spanish-language Latin career and was respected. But in the American mainstream? He was, by his own admission, “a nervous unknown.” When FIFA called, he wrote in his memoir, he was nervous — but also realized the opportunity was, in his own words, a unique chance to introduce Latin music to the rest of the world.
He teamed up with Robi Draco Rosa — his old Menudo bandmate, now a brilliant songwriter and singer — and Desmond Child, the legendary hitmaker behind Bon Jovi and Aerosmith. The result was a samba-rooted Latin pop anthem with horns, percussion, and a chant — “¡Allez, allez, allez!”, a word in French that translates to “Go on” or “Go Ahead” — that was practically pre-installed in every football fan’s vocal cords.
[LA COPA DE LA VIDA]
Martin performed it at the World Cup final at the Stade de France on July 12, 1998. France won their first ever World Cup by beating tournament favorite Brazil, by a score of 3-0, with two goals by Zinedine Zidane. And Ricky Martin performed in front of more than a billion live viewers.
The song went to number one in 30 countries. It charted in over 60. It went platinum in multiple football-fever nations.
And then came the Grammys.
[LA COPA DE LA VIDA – GRAMMYS]
it was February 24, 1999 when Ricky Martin walked onto that stage of the 41st Grammy Awards in leather pants and a satin shirt to perform “La Copa de la Vida“ with the kind of hip-shaking, drum-line-fueled energy that the American pop establishment had simply never seen on prime-time television. By the time he finished, the audience was on its feet. Madonna was on her feet. Sting was on his feet. The Grammys had — accidentally — staged a coming-out party for an entire genre.
And within months: “Livin’ La Vida Loca” was number one. Jennifer Lopez’s “If You Had My Love” was number one. Enrique Iglesias was on every radio station. Marc Anthony was crossing over from salsa to American pop. Shakira was learning English and starting to plan her own American debut. The Latin Explosion was on. And every music historian who has ever written about it points to the same moment. The same song. The same World Cup.
[LA COPA DE LA VIDA]
“La Copa de la Vida” has been ranked the best World Cup song of all time by The Atlantic, by The Fader, by Dallas Observer, and by a dozen other publications. But its real legacy isn’t that ranking. It’s the door it opened. Because before “La Copa de la Vida,” American pop did not really sing in Spanish. After it, American pop could never go back. You could certainly argue that without Ricky Martin’s World Cup hit, Bad Bunny might have never performed at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. BTW, if you want to dig deeper about that legacy and Bad Bunny’s place in the world today, listen to our episode titled “NUEVAYoL: How Bad Bunny Used a 1975 Salsa Sample to Conquer the World and the SuperBowl”
[Beat.]
Now, back to the World Cup song… As preparations for France 98 were ongoin, meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic — in 1996, two years before Ricky Martin — something else had happened. Something smaller. Something stranger. And something that, two decades later, would become its own kind of anthem.
In 1996, two British comedians who had a TV show about fantasy football were asked to write a song. They had no idea what they were doing. They wrote a chorus that said “it’s coming home.” They meant it as a hopeful joke — England invented the way modern football is played, after all, and 30 years had passed since they’d won anything. The song went to number one in 1996. And in 1998. And then in 2018. And even in 2025, when the Women’s National Team won their second European championship. It is the only song in UK history to hit number one four separate times with the same artists. It has never won England’s mens national team a single trophy. For many, football has not come home. And yet — every two years — millions of English fans, in pubs, in airports, in the stands at every major tournament, sing it like a prayer. Because Three Lions isn’t about winning. It’s about hope that refuses to die.
[THREE LIONS]
“Three Lions” — “Football’s Coming Home” — was released in May 1996 for Euro 96, which England was hosting. It was co-written by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner, and Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds, a rock band from Liverpool. Broudie wanted a song that didn’t feature any of the players — because, in his words, the song needed to capture how it feels to be a fan, not a footballer. “We’re all in this together, we’re all willing to dream,” he said.
England didn’t win Euro 96. Just like in Italy 1990, they lost in the semifinal, on penalties. To Germany. Again.
The song went to number one anyway. Then it dropped. Then, two years later, for the 1998 World Cup, they re-recorded it. It went to number one for three weeks. England lost on penalties again — this time to Argentina, in the round of 16, after one of the most famous red cards in football history, when in the second half David Beckham retaliated after Diego Simeone fouled him in the middle of the pitch. They held on to a 2-2 draw, but their fate was sealed on penalties again. They were knocked out and Beckham became a national villain.
The song was still number one, though.
And then — 22 years after its original release — in 2018, when England made the World Cup semifinal in Russia, the song shot from number 24 to number one in a single week. Four number-one runs. Same song. Same artists. A unique record in British chart history.
And here’s the thing: every time you hear a stadium full of English fans sing “it’s coming home” — at a Euro, at a World Cup, at a friendly in November — you are hearing a 30-year-old fan anthem that has, somehow, become more important than any actual trophy. It is, in many ways, the perfect counterweight to “La Copa de la Vida.” Ricky Martin’s song is about winning. “Three Lions” is about losing — and singing anyway. One is Latin Religious-like ecstasy. The other is English Anglican stoicism. Both are religious in their own way. Both are about how music can carry a country through 30 years of hurt.
And even though, football actually came home, when the England Women’s National Team won two European titles in the 2020s, the song that was adopted by the Lionesses is a different one. We’ll explore that in our third episode of this three-part series.
But the song that broke every record — the song that arguably defined the modern World Cup more than any other — came in 2010. And to understand it, we have to travel from a stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, to a 1986 marching song from Cameroon.
[ZANGALÉWA]
In 1986, a Cameroonian band called Golden Sounds released a song called “Zangaléwa.” The four members were soldiers in the Cameroonian Presidential Guard. The song was a satire. It mocked African officers who had collaborated with European colonial powers. The members performed it in stuffed military uniforms with pith helmets and exaggerated bellies — comedy theater dressed as a parade. It’s an 11-minute song which helped Golden Sounds win “record of the year” in Cameroon. Years later, West African DJs in Colombia’s Caribbean coast — particularly in the cities of Cartagena and Barranquilla, — got hold of it. They started playing it at parties under different names. They called it “The Military.” They called it “El saca lengua” or “sticking your tongue out.”
And then, in 2009, Shakira and a producer named John Hill needed a chorus for a song they were writing for the 2010 South Africa World Cup. And Shakira remembered that song from her childhood in Barranquilla, which her cousins used to sing.
The most-streamed World Cup song in human history started as a Cameroonian protest song — and made its way to a global stage through Shakira’s memory of her own hometown.
The journey is almost too perfect.
[WAKA WAKA]
Let’s dice deeper into that, because the story is very fascinating. “Zangaléwa,” the song from 1986 in Cameroon grabbed a chant that was originally used by Cameroonian sharpshooters during World War II to keep morale up during long marches. Was then picked up in the 1980s by a band of soldiers turned musicians who used it to satirize the colonial military. Award-winning hit across Africa. Carried by West African DJs to the Colombian Caribbean coast, where it became a beloved party song in the cities of Barranquilla and Cartagena — both of which, by sheer coincidence, are where Shakira grew up. Decades later, Shakira sits down with and American producer to write the 2010 World Cup anthem. She brings in the chorus — “Tsamina mina, eh, eh / Waka waka, eh, eh” — that she remembered from being a kid in Colombia.
It’s cultural transformation at its finest!
But when it became clear what the song actually was — when the global press realized that “Waka Waka” was, structurally, “Zangaléwa” — there was a controversy. There were lawsuits threatened. There were arguments about plagiarism. And in the end, Sony Music and Shakira reached an out-of-court settlement with the surviving members of Golden Sounds. Royalties were paid. Credits were updated. And the band — most of whom had retired by then — said publicly that they were honored. As one member put it: “Shakira is an icon of world music. There is no question of plagiarism. She simply re-adapted the song.”
[WAKA WAKA]
“Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” was released on May 7, 2010. Shakira recorded it with the South African band Freshlyground. The song went to number one in 15 countries. It was the best-selling song of 2010 in seven countries. The music video at the time of this recording, has over 4.5 billion views on YouTube. It became, by 2025, the most-streamed FIFA World Cup song in Spotify’s history and it even has a Guinness World Record.
Shakira had already made her mark on the World Cup four years before with “Hips Don’t Lie”. The song became Shakira’s best performing single ever to date, in the United States, and even though Il Divo and Toni Braxton’s “The Time of Our Lives” was the official song of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, “Hips Don’t Lie” became it’s most remembered anthem. For the song, Shakira teamed up with Panamanian songwriter Omar Alfanno and Wyclef Jean who is featured in the track. The opening horns actually come from a sample of a romantic salsa song from 1992, called “Amores Como el Nuestro”, by Puerto Rican Jerry Rivera.
[AMORES COMO EL NUESTRO]
But back to 2010. “Waka Waka” wasn’t even the only major song of 2010. Coca-Cola — FIFA’s long-running sponsor — picked a different one. They picked a song by a Somali-Canadian rapper named K’naan called “Wavin’ Flag.” Originally, “Wavin’ Flag” was a song about refugees. About war. About the violent realities K’naan had escaped as a child in Mogadishu. The original lyrics referenced “a violent prone, poor people zone.” Coca-Cola loved the melody. But the lyrics, as they politely put it, did not fit “the campaign’s themes.” So K’naan rewrote it. He kept the chorus — “when I get older, I will be stronger / they’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag” — but the rest became a celebration. A “Celebration Mix.”
[WAVING FLAG]
The song went top ten in over 20 countries. K’naan recorded versions of it with local artists in 16 different territories — David Bisbal in Spain, Nancy Ajram in the Arab world, Jane Zhang in China. Coca-Cola took the World Cup trophy on a 134,000-kilometer tour across 86 nations, with “Wavin’ Flag” playing in every airport, every stadium, every promo. It was, arguably, the most efficient piece of global music marketing in modern history.
But here’s the tension that K’naan himself has talked about openly: the original “Wavin’ Flag” was a protest song. The remix is a corporate anthem. And that gap — between the protest and the celebration — is exactly the gap World Cup music has always lived in. Music gets borrowed. Music gets softened. Music gets translated for global consumption. And sometimes, what was made to challenge ends up making us dance.
And by 2010, FIFA had figured out the formula. Global artist. Global producer. Borrowed melody. Multilingual chorus. Stadium-sized release. But somewhere between Shakira’s billion streams and the corporate machinery of FIFA, something started to crack. Because for every official anthem playing in stadiums… fans were writing their own songs in the streets. And the next great chapter of World Cup music wasn’t going to be commissioned by FIFA. It was going to be written by a schoolteacher.
[Cliffhanger sting. Ad break or transition.]
Act 3 — When the Fans Took Over (2014–2026)
HOOK (Act 3 Open — Clip-Ready)
In July 2021, an Argentine schoolteacher named Fernando Romero — a fan of the Buenos Aires football club Racing — sat down at his desk and rewrote the lyrics to an old breakup song. The original song was called “Muchachos, esta noche me emborracho”, which means “Boys, Tonight I’m Getting Drunk,” by an Argentine ska-punk band called La Mosca. Romero rewrote it about Lionel Messi, about Diego Maradona, about the Falkland Islands. He uploaded it to social media. He didn’t expect anything. Eighteen months later, the Argentine national team was singing his version — word for word — in the locker room at the World Cup in Qatar. Lionel Messi called it his favorite song in a TV interview. La Mosca officially re-recorded it with Romero’s lyrics. And when Argentina won the 2022 World Cup, the song the players sang as they lifted the trophy was a song that no record label commissioned, that no marketing executive approved, and that no FIFA committee ever heard until it was too big to ignore. A schoolteacher wrote the soundtrack of the most-watched final in history. And he didn’t make a dime.
[MUCHACHOOOOOS]
Let’s back up to 2014, now.
Brazil hosted the World Cup. It should have been a perfect storm. The country that arguably loves football more than any other on Earth. The home of Pelé, of Rivaldo, of Ronaldinho, Ronaldo – the original – of samba, of bossa nova. The musical resources Brazil has are essentially infinite. And their football, dances to their own rhythm.
So who did FIFA pick to make the official song?
Pitbull. Jennifer Lopez. And Brazilian pop singer Claudia Leitte.
The song was “We Are One (Ole Ola).” It was, technically, fine. It was an inoffensive global pop track. Pitbull rapped about partying. J. Lo sang the chorus. Claudia Leitte added Portuguese vocals so Brazil could feel represented. And — to put it gently — Brazilians, who have given the world dozens of musical revolutions, were not impressed. The official song was widely seen as a corporate compromise. It was not a hit in Brazil. It was, by most measures, the least-loved official World Cup song in modern memory.
And something quietly shifted.
Because while FIFA was trying to manufacture global anthems from the top down, fans were starting to write their own from the bottom up. In Brazilian streets, fans sang their own samba chants. In English pubs, “Three Lions” still ruled. In Argentine stadiums, the long tradition of “hinchadas” — organized fan choirs that adapt popular songs into football anthems — kept churning out new versions of old hits. Which is exactly the topic for part two in this series, coming out next week on Uncovering the Cover!
And then came 2018.
Russia hosted. FIFA gave us “Live It Up” by Nicky Jam, Will Smith, and Era Istrefi. By every official metric, it underperformed. People didn’t talk about it. Will Smith reportedly resented being involved. The official anthem era — the era of one big global pop song defining a tournament — was clearly losing its grip. The only light of significance in the shadow of this song is something FIFA might not have noticed. Era Istrefi, one of the singers, is from Kosovo, a nation who had claimed their independence just 10 years before, and now she was singing the official song of the Russia World Cup. Russia and Kosovo don’t have official relationships, because Russia supported Serbia when Kosovo declared independence.
[LIVE IT UP]
And then 2022 happened.
For the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, FIFA tried something new. Instead of one official song, they commissioned an entire soundtrack — multiple songs, multiple artists, multiple cultures. The first single was called “Hayya Hayya (Better Together)” — sung by American Trinidad Cardona, Nigerian Davido, and Qatari singer Aisha. “Hayya” is Arabic for “let’s go.” It was produced by RedOne. It was pleasant. It was diplomatic. It was, by FIFA’s own design, “better together.”
But it was not what anyone was singing at the World Cup.
Because at the World Cup in Qatar, what people were singing — what filled the stadiums, what spilled into the souk in Doha, what played at every Argentina match, what the players themselves screamed in the dressing room — was a song that no one at FIFA had ever heard of. A song called “Muchachos, Ahora Nos Volvimos a Ilusionar.” “Boys, We Have Our Hopes Up Again.”
[MUCHACHOOOOOS]
The story of “Muchachos” is, to me, the most beautiful cover story in modern football. Because it has multiple layers — and every layer is a transformation.
Layer one: in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a Buenos Aires band called La Mosca Tsé-Tsé was making a name for itself blending punk, ska, tango, cumbia, and Latin pop. In 2003, they released a song called “Muchachos, Esta Noche Me Emborracho” — “Boys, Tonight I’m Getting Drunk.” It’s a breakup song. It’s about heartbreak. It’s a tango-tinged ode to drowning your sorrows. This is that original song.
[MUCHACHOS ESTA NOCHE ME EMBORRACHO]
Layer two: in November 2020, Diego Maradona died. The whole of Argentina mourned. Eight months later, in July 2021, Argentina beat Brazil in the Copa América final at the Maracanã in Rio. Their first major international trophy in 28 years. Messi finally had a senior trophy. And in the air, in that moment, was the feeling that maybe — just maybe — something bigger was building and Maradona in his God-like image was blessing Messi from above. When Messi won his eighth Ballon d’Or as the best footballer on the planet, he dedicated the award to Maradona
[MESSI DEDICATION]
Layer three: a schoolteacher named Fernando Romero, a fan of the Buenos Aires club Racing, sits down and rewrites the lyrics to La Mosca’s old breakup song. He writes about Maradona — “in the sky we can see him, with Don Diego and with la Tota, encouraging Lionel.” Don Diego and La Tota, being Maradona’s parents and Lionel, being Messi. He writes about the Malvinas, or the Falkland Islands, about the wars with England, about heartbreak, about the failed finals — “I can’t explain it to you because you won’t understand the finals we lost.” He writes about hope returning. He goes on national television and sings the song live. It goes viral. A cumbia version is made. Different remixes spread.
[ORIGINAL VERSION]
Layer four: in June 2022, Argentina beats Italy 3-0 in the Finalissima at Wembley Stadium. The players, in the locker room, start singing — not their national anthem, not La Mosca’s original — but Romero’s version. “Muchachos, ahora nos volvimos a ilusionar.”
Layer five: La Mosca’s singer Guillermo Novellis hears about it, re-records the song with Romero’s lyrics, and releases the new version officially in October 2022 — just before the World Cup, which for the first time was going to be played in December.
Layer six: Lionel Messi is asked on a TV interview what his favorite song is. He says “Muchachos.” He sings a few lines. The clip explodes. Novellis later told Billboard that for La Mosca, having Messi sing your song on national TV was, in his words, “like arriving in Rome and being introduced by the Pope.”
And then Argentina makes it to the World Cup final in Qatar… and the outcome was exactly what everyone in Argentina expected.
[GIRALT NARRACION]
In one of the greatest World Cup finals ever played. After an intense 3-3 draw in regulation, Argentina beat France on penalties. Messi held the trophy. And the song that played in every Argentine bar, every plaza in Buenos Aires, every locker room celebration… was a song written by a teacher, on top of a song written by a ska-punk band, on top of a tradition of fan chants that goes back generations.
Think about that for a second. The official FIFA song of the 2022 World Cup was “Hayya Hayya.” The actual song of the 2022 World Cup was “Muchachos.” One was commissioned by the biggest sports body on Earth. The other was written for free by a guy at a school desk in Argentina inspired by how barras in his country change the lyrics to popular songs. Guess which one we still sing.
[MUCHACHOOOOOS]
And this — this — is the great quiet revolution of World Cup music. For 30 years, FIFA tried to write the soundtrack of the tournament. And for almost as long, the fans have been writing a better one. The official song is what plays on the broadcast. The fan song is what plays in the city.
[Music shifts — uplifting. Modern. 2026 era.]
Which brings us to right now. The 2026 FIFA World Cup is about to kick off — the biggest tournament in history. For the first time ever, 48 teams will play. For the first time ever, three host nations will share it: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The tournament starts on June 11 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City and ends on July 19 at MetLife Stadium just outside New York. Madonna, Shakira, and BTS will headline the first-ever halftime show at a World Cup final.
And on May 14, 2026 Shakira and Burna Boy released the official anthem: “Dai Dai.”
[DAI DAI]
“Dai Dai” is, in many ways, the most interesting World Cup song since “Waka Waka” — because it knows its own history. The title itself is Italian, just like the first-ever official World Cup song from Luciano Pavarotti in 1990 — “dai dai” means “come on, come on, let’s go.” It is a chant, not a phrase. The chorus literally cycles through five languages: “Dai dai, Ikó, dale, allez, let’s go.” Italian, Yoruba, Spanish, French, English. And in the verses, the song name-checks the greatest names in football history: Maradona, Maldini, Romário, Cristiano Ronaldo, Beckham, Kaká, Messi, Mbappé, Iniesta, Salah. It is, deliberately, a global package.
It’s also Shakira’s fourth song associated with a World Cup — after “Hips Don’t Lie” in 2006, “Waka Waka” in 2010, and “La La La” in 2014. For a Colombian who started out singing about her hips in 1995, she has now spent 20 years quietly becoming the most associated face in modern World Cup music history. And the partnership with Burna Boy — one of the most important African artists of his generation — is no accident. FIFA, finally, is paying attention to what Shakira already understood with “Waka Waka”: the most powerful World Cup songs aren’t the ones written from one place. They’re the ones that travel.
The FIFA Sound album for 2026 also includes Jelly Roll and Carín León’s “Lighter” — an American country-regional Mexican collaboration that would have been almost unthinkable five years ago, especially in the current political climate. There’s “Por Ella” by Los Ángeles Azules and Belinda — a Mexican cumbia legend meeting a Mexican pop star. There’s Jessie Reyez and Elyanna with “Illuminate” — a Canadian-Colombian artist with a Palestinian-Chilean artist. Daddy Yankee is on the soundtrack. There’s also a collaboration between Thailand-born K-Pop star Lisa, Brazilian reggaeton sensation Anita, and Nigerian rapper Rema, which connects three of the most music and soccer-passionate continents. So is Coca-Cola’s campaign, where Colombian reggaeton pioneer J Balvin and American with Jamaican and German roots R&B singer Amber Mark are reinterpreting Van Halen’s “Jump”, together with punk drummer Travis Barker and progressive metal guitarist Steve Vai. Talk about a mix of cultures. This is the cover of our culture. Van Halen. Re-imagined. By a Colombian reggaeton star and Blink-182’s drummer. For a soccer tournament.
That is what a World Cup soundtrack looks like in 2026.
[Music swells.]
And here’s why this all matters. Because if you zoom out — if you look at the entire history of World Cup music from El Rock del Mundial in 1962 to Dai Dai in 2026 — you see something almost impossible to see in any other corner of pop culture. You see music doing what we are constantly told music can no longer do. You see music covering, in the deepest sense of that word, an entire culture. Not a subculture. Not a fan base. Not a region. An entire global culture. Every four years, billions of people sing the same songs. They cry to the same melodies. They borrow the same chants. They build a temporary shared soundtrack — and then, when the tournament ends, they walk away carrying that soundtrack with them for the rest of their lives.
That is what the songs of the World Cup actually do. They don’t soundtrack the matches. They cover everything around the matches — the friendships, the rivalries, the kitchen-table arguments, the road trips, the long nights, the bars in Buenos Aires and the pubs in Liverpool and the rooftops in Lagos and the plazas in Bogotá, and the watch parties in New York or Seattle. Every great World Cup song is a cover of something — of an opera, of a Cameroonian march, of a breakup song, of a Somali refugee story, of an English fan’s 30 years of hurt. And every great World Cup song becomes the cover of a culture that, for one summer, exists everywhere at once.
And That is what Uncovering the Cover is all about.
[Transition to outro.]
Outro
[Music settles. Reflective. Cinematic.]
So here’s what we covered today.
We started in 1986 with four Cameroonian soldiers writing a song to mock colonial officers. We traced that song — “Zangaléwa” — across continents, through West African DJs in Colombian port cities, into Shakira’s childhood memory, and back out into the world as “Waka Waka”. We watched Luciano Pavarotti, a 54-year-old opera tenor, become a global pop star because a BBC producer needed a theme song. We watched Ricky Martin walk onto a Grammys stage in leather pants and crack open the Latin Explosion. We watched two British comedians write a hopeful joke about football coming home — and turn it into a 30-year prayer. We watched a Somali refugee’s protest song get softened by a soda company into one of the best-selling anthems in marketing history. And we watched an Argentine schoolteacher quietly write the soundtrack of the greatest World Cup final ever played — for free, on a whim, while sitting at his desk.
Here’s what I think the songs of the World Cup actually teach us.
They teach us that the most powerful music in the modern world isn’t written for us. It’s music we sing back. It’s music we borrow. It’s music we cover. The World Cup is the last truly global cultural ritual — the last event where, for one summer every four years, the same melodies are humming in São Paulo, Seoul, Lagos, Mexico City, Tehran, London, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, New York City, Miami… wherever you are in. And the artists who get this — Shakira, Ricky Martin, Pavarotti, K’naan, La Mosca, even an anonymous schoolteacher named Fernando Romero — these aren’t just performers. They’re translators. They take a melody from one corner of the world and they hand it to another. And in that handoff, something culturally enormous happens. A military march becomes a stadium anthem. A breakup song becomes a victory cry. An opera aria becomes a fan chant. A song about war becomes a song about celebration.
The World Cup didn’t invent any of these songs. But the World Cup made them belong to all of us. And as “Dai Dai” plays in stadiums from Mexico City to Vancouver to East Rutherford, New Jersey over the next two months, what you’re actually hearing is a hundred-year-old conversation — between continents, between generations, between official anthems and fan chants — finally reaching the biggest moment in its history.
Music is the only thing that can do that. And the World Cup is the only stage big enough to prove it.
[Music up.]
This has been Uncovering the Cover, “When Football Met Pop: How World Cup Songs Covered an Entire Global Culture.” This is the first episode of a three-part series on how much music has made the biggest sport on the planet an integral part of our culture. Next week we’ll dive into the how fans, particularly from South America and the UK, have created their own football anthems borrowing from popular music, and the week after we’ll look at how the women’s game has created a very unique music culture in its own. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who also enjoys music culture, because our culture is best preserved when music is shared. Subscribe, follow us and review us, so we can reach more music culture fans. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok, and let us know which song you’d like uncovered next. You can go to our website, which is linked in the show notes to find a transcript and all the information regarding this episode. Uncovering the Cover brings you the hidden stories behind music’s greatest transformations. Until next time!