Madonna, BTS, Justin Bieber and Shakira headlined the first-ever FIFA World Cup Finals Halftime Show on Sunday, playing a packed 11-minute mega-mix that also featured Burna Boy, the New York Philharmonic’s Gustavo Dudamel and The Muppets.
Madonna kicked off the show, throttling through the New York-New Jersey stadium tunnels in a dune buggy, fittingly driven by renowned Brazilian soccer players Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, in a pre-recorded segment. In the segment, the pop star sang a new version of her 2000 hit “Music” infused with elements of “Disco Inferno” and “Danceteria,” before appearing live on the pitch and handing over the baton to conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
He led musicians from the New York Philharmonic and Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in a rendition of “Seven Nation Army,” with Iranian violinist Bijan Mortazavi and The Muppets’ rock group Electric Mayhem, in one of several Muppets appearances.
K-pop superstars BTS took to the pitch with a football-inspired performance of their hit “Dynamite,” with a lead in from a video of Norway’s rowing chant and rewritten lyrics for the halftime show. Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt then popped up on field in character as Ted Lasso and Coach Beard from their Apple TV series, as they encouraged Justin Bieber before he took the pitch to cheers from the crowd.
Bieber then took the volume down with a soulful rendition of his 2025 song “Everything Hallelujah,” before handing it over to Shakira and Burna Boy, who brought the noise back up, in a highlight of the halftime show, and performed the official song of the FIFA World Cup “Dai Dai,” alongside Uganda’s Ghetto Kids, dancing in a sea of yellow costumes. Off-camera, a group of rainbow-shirted schoolchildren snuck onto the field to ready for the finale.
The schoolchildren, from Staten Island’s PS22, were joined by Coldplay, more Muppets, and Australian singer-songwriter Emmanuel Kelly, who debuted “We Dance,” an original song written by Coldplay for the halftime show. The pitch, which was covered by a rainbow-colored tarp to protect the grass, was filled with dancers holding colorful balls, as fans in the stadium waved the colorful flags found in all the seats.
The halftime programming was curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin and produced by Global Citizen, which has a goal of raising $100 million for the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, with $1 from each ticket throughout the World Cup donated to the fund.
The 80,000-capacity New York New Jersey stadium was packed with few empty seats in the sea of red and white and blue at the final matchup of Spain versus Argentina. President Trump was a confirmed attendee, with celebrities including Pharrell, Matt Damon, Adrien Brody and Will Ferrell also spotted in the crowd. And while Shakira drew big cheers, as did the appearance of Bieber, these paled in comparison to the cheers and oh’s and ah’s in the crowd throughout the gripping final.
The show marked Bieber’s first public performance since his much-discussed headlining set at Coachella back in April and came on the heels of Madonna’s new dance-pop album Confessions II and amid the Arirang world tour for K-pop group BTS, which is returning to touring after band members took a three-year hiatus to complete mandatory military service. BTS arrived in New York this morning after perfroming a show last night at Paris’s Stade de France.
Live Nation and Done + Dusted also served as producers on the show. In an interview before the show, executive producer Guy Carrington of Done+Dusted said the team had spent “months and months preparing this,” and had a goal of presenting a wide-ranging show, while adhering to a tight schedule so as to interference with the match. Players were still coming off the pitch after the first half at about 3:55 p.m. ET, with a crew wheeling out a stage and then kicking off the about 11-minute halftime performance around 4:01 pm ET.
“This was always about bringing together the world’s top performers and creating a real moment of collaboration and unity,” Carrington told THR.
Post Malone headlined the pre-show, which began 90 minutes before kickoff, singing a new song “Crome Heartbreaker,” as well as his 2018 hit “Wow,” as well as “Sunflower,” his smash with Swae Lee from Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. Swae came out for the latter track as well.
Also appearing was iShowSpeed, who danced across an image of the Empire State Building and reminded the crowd, “This is the World Cup.” Special care was taken to try to protect the grass field, with a crew spreading a larger covering of the New York City skyline over the field for the pre-show, and sprinklers turned on after the performance.
Before the match, Nicole Scherzinger and Laura Pausini joined Robbie Williams to sing “Desire,” the official FIFA anthem penned by Williams, with Jennifer Hudson singing the U.S. national anthem. Williams escorted Scherzinger and Pausini off the pitch, hand in hand, before the national anthems from Spain and Argentina.
Tom Cruise also came onto the pitch to give a speech about the importance of the sport, stating “Football has no language,” while the crowd’s chanting of “Olé, Olé, Olé” continued, uninterrupted.
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