This year’s World Cup was not short of criticism. Millions of viewers were enraged over extortionate ticket pricing, political interference and rumors of widespread corruption that put a real downer on what is normally a jubilant, unifying global sporting event.
After the not-too-well-received addition of “hydration breaks” (cough, ad breaks, cough), controversially splitting every soccer match into four quarters as opposed to its regular two halves, you can imagine how the news of a Super Bowl-esque halftime show was received by international soccer fans.
These spectators are not so used to their favorite sport coming with a side of flashy dance numbers, body-popping boy bands and extravagant set pieces. Why are Carlos Alcaraz and Hoyeon on the pitch opening a Louis Vuitton case to reveal the World Cup trophy? A screenshot of that exact moment accrued over 120,000 likes on X, with the comment: “Sincerely one of the most gauche and disgusting things I’ve seen in a minute.” FIFA boss Gianni Infantino is no stranger to accusations of soul-sucking greed, but the garishness of the Spain vs Argentina final — from which the Europeans would emerge triumphant — felt, to some of its one billion projected viewers, like a new low.
Event producers were confident the 27-minute spectacle was a smash hit, even though the International Football Association Board had repeatedly stated that, per rules, players are only entitled to a maximum 15-minute stoppage. It didn’t matter: They had recruited BTS, Shakira, Justin Bieber, Chris Martin and Burna Boy for it. They’d even catered to the real soccer-obsessed by having Madonna throttling through the New York-New Jersey stadium tunnels in a dune buggy driven by Brazilian greats Ronaldo and Ronaldinho.
It is, after all, America — a Trump-hosted final that necessitated showmanship even in the parts where soccer wasn’t happening. Many of its supporters said the show was supremely entertaining and a hugely impressive feat given the scale of the sets and star power of those involved. Jason Sudeikis (as Ted Lasso) came out. Conductor Gustavo Dudamel led musicians from the New York Philharmonic and Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in a rendition of “Seven Nation Army.” Iranian violinist Bijan Mortazavi and The Muppets’ rock group Electric Mayhem performed, in one of several Muppets appearances.
The consensus outside in the U.K.? As The Guardian put it: “To its detractors, it smacks of America not so much embracing the World Cup as imposing itself upon it.” The Times, meanwhile, said: “Stars underwhelm in a glib and unsubtle spectacle.” Former English soccer star and pundit on the BBC Wayne Rooney soon went viral on X, amassing millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes, for giving his opinion: “My favourite bit of the halftime show was when it finished… I like all of them artists, but I thought it was crap.” Or maybe The Cure’s Robert Smith can capture things more succinctly: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH,” he wrote on Instagram, with the hashtags #breadandcircuses and #pleasejustfuckoff.
In Germany, a viewer there tells The Hollywood Reporter: “In the media, the comments were very bad… Too long and too much [of an] American show. The break should have been 15 minutes [as it usually is]. What they do in those 15 minutes doesn’t matter but the rules should be followed.” A Spaniard accrued over 319,000 likes on an X post for pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump’s war on Iran while a giant “LOVE” flag was rolled out onto the pitch. (The Iranian team and its coaching staff were the only team required to fly in and leave the U.S. on their match days).
Even U.S. publications weren’t very fond of the event: “The show as a whole was so blandly, sappily crowd-pleasing that few individual moments stood out as highlights,” writes TIME‘s Judy Berman. The Athletic called it “slick, surreal and entirely unnecessary.” Tim Spiers wrote: “BTS doing a pop number, Bieber bringing the mood to a halt and then Coldplay, with the help of a load of kids from the PS22 Chorus, ramping up the schmaltz singing about love… you just kept asking yourself why? Why is the greatest footballer to have ever kicked a ball being made to endure the longest half-time of his entire career so that Chris Martin could tell us all to believe in love?”
“It’s football, but not as we know it. It is American sport, exactly as we know it,” writes London-based writer Tim Spiers. Elsewhere, Lindsay Zoladz wrote for The New York Times: “The performances were all quite episodic, to the extent that they seemed to be taking place on different planes of existence… Lots of stars, little purpose.”
