Music Will Save Us: A History of World Cup Songs | OneFootball

From FIFA-backed official anthems to fan-created hits, we take a look at how music has shaped the legacy of the World Cup.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino pulled no punches when discussing the potential impact of this year’s World Cup, claiming “This will not just be the greatest football event, this will be the greatest event in human history, the greatest event that humanity will ever witness.”

Critics may posit that he’s setting the bar a skosh high, and that repeated references to “humanity” while the democratic world smolders in the background might come across as gauche when we’re talking about a literal sporting event. But does Infantino kinda have a point?

The World Cup has long been a smorgasbord of soccer, culture, and commerce that rolls the globe up into a month-long collective hypnosis, allowing us to temporarily set our troubles aside and have some plain old-fashioned fun.

I’ll admit, the political instability of a country once lauded for its, well, political stability has me feeling less-than-jazzed about the generally very enticing prospect of a World Cup on home soil. Couple that with exorbitant ticket prices and the looming specter of diabolically hot weather conditions, these United States do not necessarily feel awash in World Cup fever as one might expect.

But what did we say about the blending of sport and culture? Music will save us, as it so often does! When it comes to the World Cup, its accompanying soundtrack primes the pump of the nostalgia machine. It’s what will make us, years from now, think about the halcyon days of the Summer of ’26, when the U.S. men’s national team went on a miracle run to the World Cup Final. (Which is totally gonna happen!)

Who among us can hear K’Naan’s “Wavin’ Flag” without being instantly transported back to the Coca-Cola-infused glory that was the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? Or Ricky Martin’s “La Copa de la Vida,” which taught us all how to chant Allez, Allez, Allez in technically-perfect French to coincide with France ‘98?!?

Hit songs and World Cups go together as naturally as Luis Suarez and biting people. Since the 1930s, various national teams have been using uptempo songs to hype up their fanbases for World Cup tournaments. Since 1990, FIFA has designated official World Cup anthems for each tournament: Generally hopeful, quick-tempoed, multi-cultural pop songs with lyrics vague enough to be easily translated.

Broadcasters as well have licensed and commissioned myriad hits to serve as lead-in music. Sponsors like Coca-Cola or Budweiser routinely put out their own unofficial World Cup anthems, some of which end up more memorable than the official ones. But the best World Cup bangers are organic, grassroots compositions that start small, go viral, and end with stadiums full of boisterous fans singing them in unison.

Below, we’ll take a look at the history of World Cup music and highlight some shining examples of this incredibly niche art form.

Early Examples

“Uruguayos Campeones”

The early days of international soccer were dominated by the diminutive nation of Uruguay. Often marginalized as “Argentina’s little brother,” the country to the northwest of the Rio de la Plata won two Olympic tournaments and two World Cups by 1950.

“Uruguayos Campeones” was written initially as poem by Uruguayan journalist Omar Odriozola to celebrate the country’s 1926 Copa America Final victory over Paraguay. It was soon set to music, borrowing from a famous Uruguayan tango titled La Brisa by famed composer Francisco Canaro. An instant hit, “Uruguayos” would become the unofficial anthem of Los Charrúas for more than 100 years.

Most interestingly, “Uruguayos Campeones” has been recorded and rerecorded countless times, and on each occasion we’re treated to a lesson in the musical evolution of Uruguayan culture. Early versions were heavily influenced by murga, a street-music style characterized by African drums, harmonizing chants performed by groups of 15 or more performers, and the ambient sounds of Uruguayan street culture, tantalizingly combined to create a knee-slapping rhythmic experience.

But Uruguayan rock legend Washington “Canario” Luna released the definitive version of the hit in 1985, combining the tango and murga roots of the classic with the jangly guitar omnipresent in the Latin rock of the ’80s. He even included in the lyrics an updated list of teams that Uruguay had defeated in recent World Cups. The song became such a hit that Uruguayan broadcasters played it leading into every game of the 1990 World Cup in Italy. It remains the unofficial anthem of La Celeste and is regularly re-recorded by the newest generations of Uruguayan musical acts.

“El Rock del Mundial”

Ahead of the 1962 World Cup, Chilean rock band Los Ramblers, led by pianist Jorge Rojas, sensed an opportunity with the tournament being hosted on home soil. They wrote and performed “El Rock de Mundial” (“The Rock of the World Cup”) as an homage to the tournament’s return to South America for the first time in 20 years.

Rock ‘n’ roll fever was sweeping the continent at the time, and Los Ramblers’ upbeat, jazz-infused tune felt to many like the perfect modern hit for the modern sporting competition.

Vocalist Germán Casas hits us with his best Elvis Presley impersonation, feeding us such vague and nonthreatening lyrical gems as “The 1962 World Cup/Is a universal celebration/Of sport and the ball/Celebrating our triumphs/We will dance rock and roll!”

“El Rock del Mundial” became a smash-hit, and to this day remains the best-selling Chilean single in history. It inspired La Roja to a third-place finish on home soil, and the song still pulls at the heart strings of Chilean fans of all ages.

“World Cup Willie”

The 1966 World Cup was held to great fanfare in the ancestral home of soccer, jolly old England. Led by captain Bobby Moore, the Three Lions stormed to the title, capping off their miracle run by vanquishing dreaded rivals Germany in the final.

But what if I told you there was another lion that inspired the boys and delighted a nation along the way? That’s right, World Cup 1966 was the genesis of the official World Cup Mascot. Willie the Lion, a floppy-haired adolescent apex predator, sported a kit with the Union Jack across the front. So ubiquitous was Willie during the tournament that you could find him emblazoned on each and every commemorative item you could think of. Cuff-links? Sure! Whiskey tumbler? Why not! Dog bowl? You betcha!

World Cup Willie nostalgia is so pronounced that eBay is chock-full of memorabilia that sells for way more money than any grown human should ever be willing to pay for it.

The joie de vivre that this perpetually-sleepy lion inspired in the typically stodgy English public is nowhere more apparent than in Lonnie Donegan’s 1966 hit, “World Cup Willie.” Donegan was Scottish, and some accused him of traitorous behavior in performing a song celebrating the footballing pursuits of “the auld enemy.” The song failed to chart in the UK, but listening back, it’s hard not to feel a sense of glee at the infectious quality of Donegan’s ballad. At times it sounds like something off of Sgt. Pepper’s, an immersion into a barroom full of footy-loving Brits belting their hearts out about their love for a cartoon lion.

“Fussball ist Unser Leben”

The 1974 World Cup in West Germany was both a homecoming and celebration of the nation’s victory in the 1972 European Championships held in Belgium. The West German public were understandably soccer-mad in the lead up to their first World Cup on home soil, so German music producer Jack White (not that one) conspired to strike while the iron was hot by putting out a single in the massively popular Schlager style, a kitschy, utopian type of sing-along that gained in popularity post-war. White, to his credit, was a ball-knower, having played professionally for more than a decade, including a successful season with PSV Eindhoven.

White somehow convinced the West German national team to record his single (translated to English: “Football is Our Life”), and it became a massively popular hit across the country. Most of the players had no formal singing experience, although Franz Beckenbauer tried his hand at a pop music career eight years earlier, putting out a single titled “Good Friends Can Never be Separated,” (what a catchy title!) which reached as high as 31st on the German radio charts.

What’s more, given the preponderance of TV sets purchased by Germany families in the early ’70s, White insisted that the song be accompanied by a sort of proto-music video, which shows the German team in the recording studio, wearing their full kits, looking tremendously uncomfortable but proudly belting out lyrics that go hard, such as “We fight and give everything, then one goal after another is scored!”

The tune became a massive hit and inspired a bevy of subsequent attempts by the German Federation to put out more World Cup-themed bangers. They tried a tango-inspired ballad with crooner Udo Jurgens in 1978, but it lacked the catchy pizazz of the original. In 1994, the team even recorded a single with The Village People titled “Far Away in America.”

We can only hope a sequel comes out ahead of this summer’s return to the U.S.

Official Songs

In the lead-up to the 1990 World Cup in Italy, FIFA realized it could get its hands on some of that sweet, sweet musical revenue if they made a big deal about putting out an official song.

These have varied in both their musical styles and catchiness. Shakira’s “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” is such a charming earworm that it’s impossible to hear bars from it and not smash your hands together in a prayer gesture and shift them back and forth.

1990, the first World Cup for which an official song was explicitly released, brought us “Un’estate Italiana” (An Italian Summer) performed by Italian artists Edoardo Benato and Gianna Nannini. It’s perfectly ’90s, entering with shrieking electric guitars and gritty vocals, while the background of the music video looks like one of those cool teal and purple paper water cups we all had in elementary school. It was the best-selling Italian single that year, but where they went wrong was attempting to produce both English and Spanish editions. The Spanish version, performed by Paraguayan Susan Ferrer, has vocals that are too loud compared to the music, while the English version, performed by singers Joe Milner, Moll Anderson, Paula Mulcahy Keane, reeks of clunky translation and the milquetoast energy of an overproduced corporate jingle. The original Italian is definitely the winner of the three.

2006’s attempt, a slow-burning ballad performed by Toni Braxton and Il Divo (one can only assume that their names were drawn randomly out of a hat), doesn’t quite bring the same charm and energy as other entries. Braxton starts us off with vague lyrics referencing some sort of event: “There was a dream/A long time ago/There was a dream/Destined to grow.”

The song switches to Spanish about halfway through, and Braxton does her absolute best to echo words in the Iberian language, but comes off as someone speaking into their microphone during a particularly challenging Duolingo lesson.

Celebrated artists such as Hall and Oates, Ricky Martin, Nicky Jam, Jennifer Lopez, Pitbull, and Will Smith have all performed official World Cup anthems, but only Martin’s “La Copa de Vida” comes close to matching “Waka Waka” in terms of commercial and artistic success.

Corporate Songs

Coca-Cola is the undisputed GOAT of putting out sponsored World Cup songs, hitting us with such classics as “Colors” by Jason Derulo in 2018, as well as repurposing Somalian-Canadian rapper K’Naan’s classic “Wavin’ Flag” for the occasion by tossing in some soccer-specific lyrics.

In 2022, Budweiser tapped Lil Baby to release “The World is Yours to Take,” a Tears for Fears sampling track that was not well-received and forgotten the minute it was released.

Broadcast Songs

Television stations the world over have made some really strange choices when it comes to their lead-in music for World Cup broadcasts.

The BBC, in particular, developed an affinity for the music of one Andrew Lloyd Webber, as they tapped him to compose an orchestral titled “Argentine Melody” for the 1978 World Cup. The broadcaster then went on to use the song “Jellicle Ball” from the musical Cats as its lead-in music for the 1982 World Cup in Spain. Thankfully, no CGI James Corden is reported to have appeared on screen.

Late-Stage Capitalism Hellscape Songs

“World Cup” by IShowSpeed

There was no way that I could end this article without addressing the “hit” World Cup song produced for Qatar 2022 by Youtuber IShowSpeed. This was an actual song produced by an actual record label, in which the aforementioned streamer frenetically lists the participating nations against a hip-hop beat, but pronounces the names of each country as if he’s never heard them before.

Highlights include: “Argentinia,” “Cro-tia,” and, my personal favorite, “Toon-zia” in place of Tunisia, because it sounds like a country that Bugs Bunny would live in. The piece goes on to assert that various nations will “kick ‘til we die,” and ends with Mr. Speed prognosticating the outcome of the tournament, flippantly judging the chances of each participating team.

I don’t know much about this person, but I did watch a video in which he races Olympic gold medalist Noah Lyles in a 50-meter race, loses by a full two strides, but then excitedly asserts that he tied the race.

But clearly IShowSpeed should be focused on his rapping career, since, according to YouTube, his “World Cup” song has been streamed nearly 200 million times. I can’t really tell if this is a serious person who produced an ostensibly serious attempt at making World Cup-themed art, or if this is some elaborate Andy Kaufman-esque social experiment masquerading in the trappings of cash-grabbing modern hip-hop adjacent slop. If it happens to be the former, I say we close up shop and cancel the era of World Cup music. We had a good run, folks!