The opening notes of ‘Music’ rolled across the stadium before a single word had been spoken, and tens of thousands of people were already on their feet. The 2026 FIFA World Cup Final halftime show was not building toward a moment. It opened as one. For a global audience gathered around what is arguably the sport’s biggest single night, the performance made a case that the intermission could carry as much emotional weight as the ninety minutes surrounding it.
Ronaldo and Ronaldinho pulled up to the pitch in a dune buggy on 19 July 2026, and the passenger they were chauffeuring was Madonna. In eleven minutes of live performance at New York New Jersey Stadium, the first-ever halftime show at a FIFA World Cup Final rewrote what a football occasion could be. The show, curated by Chris Martin of Coldplay, was not just a concert dropped onto a football field. It was a fundraising declaration, built around the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund’s goal of raising 100 million US dollars to expand education and football access for children worldwide.
From a dune buggy entrance to a Muppet drummer
Madonna opened with ‘Music’, backed by an orchestra assembled from two of the world’s most storied ensembles: musicians from the New York Philharmonic and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, conducted by Venezuelan maestro Gustavo Dudamel. Animal, the Muppets’ drummer, was on drums. The orchestra also delivered a rendition of ‘Seven Nation Army’ that the Muppets joined, a detail absurd enough to be exactly right for a crowd of that size and energy.
BTS followed with ‘Dynamite’, the kind of song engineered to fill a stadium, and it did. Then the show took its most theatrical turn. Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt walked out in character as Ted Lasso and Coach Beard, the fictional coaches from the television series, and performed a deadpan substitution bit at the sideline. The pair traded assessments of what they had just watched: ‘The first half of halftime knocked my darn socks off.’ ‘Spectacular, baby.’ After deciding the show needed ‘some heart’ and ‘someone who can bring the love,’ they sent their substitution on with a single instruction: ‘Go out there. Don’t be nervous. Nobody’s watching. Make us proud.’
The player sent onto the pitch was Justin Bieber, who performed ‘Everything Hallelujah’ from his album ‘Swag II’, closing the final lyric with ‘World Cup Hallelujah’ instead of the album version.
Shakira, Burna Boy and a song built for this tournament
Shakira and Burna Boy performed ‘Dai Dai’, the official song of the 2026 tournament, together on the pitch.
Coldplay closed with ‘Believe in Love’, a new song, joined by the PS22 Chorus, a group of elementary school students from Staten Island, who walked onto the pitch alongside the band. The performers gathered on the pitch, the words ‘believe in love’ displayed around the field, and the crowd was asked to say one word three times. The word was love.
The Staten Island students who shared the pitch with the finalists
The PS22 Chorus, elementary school children from Staten Island, stood on the same surface where Spain and Argentina had just played the first half of a World Cup Final, singing ‘Believe in Love’ beside Coldplay as the stadium crowd answered back.
The fund the night was built around, the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, has already passed 60 million dollars toward that 100 million goal, with grants running to grassroots education and football programmes in more than 200 countries.
The show ran eleven minutes. The final between Spain and Argentina resumed shortly after, with the pitch returning to football.
