With crushing inevitability, Gianni Infantino confirmed on Wednesday that our greatest fears had come true. A set-piece soccer match will involve a halftime show. Next summer's World Cup final will see the best artists that Coldplay and Infantino can drag to MetLife Stadium take to the stage for just long enough that players halfway through their eighth game in a month can cool down. What's that you can hear over the sound system? Why it's "22," hamstrings twinging.
No one wants this. Camilla Cabello's recent experience in the Champions League pre-game suggests few in the stands are really going to care. No one sat through the pinnacle of Lionel Messi's career in Qatar, his every effort desperately repelled by Kylian Mbappe and the rest of the France side, and thought, "This needs Post Malone."
And yet still, it's happening. All that can be done is to make the best of it.
Generally, that hasn't happened when football has collided with popular music. Dua Lipa cut through to Liverpool fans with "One Kiss" in 2018. That aside, the music of the Champions League final has not embedded itself in fan culture. Real Madrid fans don't chant Cabello's "Don't Go Yet" to memorialize their glory in Paris four years later. A pity. That song goes hard.
Perhaps the nature of soccer matches also makes a halftime show a more challenging sell. Yes, the halftime intervals are about the same length for footballs in America and the rest of the world. However, in this writer's view -- a Brit from the heartlands of infinitely superior rugby union -- there is so little of note happening in two quarters of gridiron that the six-yard pass and seven-yard run have already been analyzed in plenty detail once halftime runs around. Again, this writer's view. The rhythms of soccer are different.
Still, that's enough pontificating. If this is going to happen, might as well dream big.
Before, however, we get into the list, a word on how this was built. As best as possible, we're going to be straddling the boundary between the personal and the practical. I sincerely believe that given the platform, Arooj Aftab, Jessie Ware or Confidence Man could melt your brains with their interpretation of the halftime show. I reluctantly accept that FIFA's brand partners may have a different view. Also, it's very easy, and therefore boring, to just say that x artist did a great Super Bowl halftime show, so let's give them the World Cup. We're not going to eschew those artists entirely but we're not ranking the best past performers here either. Let's just have some fun with this.
∞ - Pitbull
This is the extremely FIFA choice. It's a hoodie under a sports jacket. It's Salt Bae sprinkling pop rap all down his arm and onto your plate. It's the ironic veneration of tat. And it has a place on one of the biggest musical stages of all. When every other recording artist in this universe and the broad sweep of the multiverse has turned the offer down then, and only then, is it time for Mr. Worldwide to take to the stage.
10. Shakira
Has a greater football song ever been written than "Waka Waka"? Yes. "Together Stronger" by Manic Street Preachers. Of course, England New Order's "World In Motion." And look, I think we could make a case for "The Order of the Seasons" by the incomparable Los Campesinos! But look, remember what we said earlier about living in the world as is. So yeah, Shakira would put on a perfectly cromulent show.
9. A NYC 2000s indie cavalcade of the stars
If the World Cup final is what it ought to be. this is a chance for New York/New Jersey to show the best of itself to the world. An occasion to celebrate the many profound ways in which the city that never sleeps (and I guess also East Rutherford) has kept the rest of the world awake. Yes, I'm talking about the pioneers of the great indie explosion at the birth of the century.
I wouldn't want you to think I've got carried away with all this, that I'm rereading "Meet Me In The Bathroom" for the 45th time, that I missed Wednesday night's Champions League fixtures for the dopamine rush of whatever post-punk icons I could find in London (Franz Ferdinand, still making music for girls to dance to). However, I have had a quick go at a setlist.
- Interpol's "Evil" somewhere in the depths of the stadium, moody lights
- LCD Soundsystem's "North American Scum" on the roof
- The Walkmen's "The Rat," the bathroom, obviously
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Heads Will Roll," the losing team's dressing room
- The Strokes' "Someday," back on the pitch for the grand finale
Yeah, I think this all works. Shall we get the ball rolling on this one, Gianni?
8. Kendrick Lamar, only a bit different
Lamar's halftime show in New Orleans last month at the Super Bowl was as compelling and purposeful as a 12-minute interlude in a sporting occasion can be. How could you not want more? Only maybe a different sort of more. I'm talking K Dot, Baby Keem, The Hillbillies, Neymar, Lionel Messi. Roll out the hit parade.
7. Coldplay, I guess
Yeah, we'd all moan about it. Everyone would have to dunk on your boozed-up aunt's favorite band. Tell you what though -- they'd put on a show. Did you see them at Glastonbury? Michael J. Fox on the guitar? These boys know when to get out of the way.
6. Oasis, with special guests Baddiel and Skinner
Let's be honest, Jude Bellingham and the boys are going to be in the final. Probably going to be trouncing whoever they're playing too. Might as well let us have our national anthem. "Three Lions," I mean.
And for many of those who have made the pilgrimage over from Europe, the unseasoned meat and potatoes rock of Oasis strikes a chord. They should enjoy it. I'll be elsewhere.
5. Harry Styles
Big name. Hasn't played the Super Bowl. Will probably be touring next summer. Might bring Mick Harford on stage.
4. Jay-Z
Again, this is New York's World Cup final. Who better to command his city's big day than the greatest rapper of all time? Just imagine the hits he would have to leave out to get in under the 12-minute mark. Get "Takeover" in at the top, "Brooklyn's Finest" and "99 Problems" in there somewhere, a grand finale of "Empire State of Mind." It's the blueprint to something pretty memorable.
Meanwhile, if anyone knows how to build a halftime show that speaks to a modern audience, it is surely the man whose Roc Nation management company have brought the Super Bowl halftime show back towards relevance. He's good mates with Chris Martin, right? Pick up the phone, guys.
3. Bad Bunny
Honestly, FIFA, if you can book Bad Bunny, extend that halftime break to an hour and a half. I want to hear "Un Verano Sin Ti" in full.
2. Bruce Springsteen
You know how we've spent much of this article talking about the final as if it's New York's when it's really in New Jersey? And when the world thinks New Jersey, there's one person we think of.
It's not immediately apparent that JWoww is halftime show material though.
I guess The Boss will do quite nicely. The mere thought of a 76-year-old man crowbarring soccer references into "Glory Days" is pure cringe but the guy can perform "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" at will.
1. Taylor Swift
It has to be, doesn't it? If a halftime show is to be remembered as anything other than one of Infantino's grand follies, then it has to quickly establish itself as a platform where the biggest artists in the world connect with perhaps the biggest television audience on the planet. Get yourself Taylor Swift and you might have started something that will actually hold a fond place in the hearts of football fans.
