The best official and unofficial anthems in the history of the World Cup

Thunderclap on the football planet! As the 2026 World Cup begins this Thursday evening, FIFA has just announced that the single Dai Dai by Shakira will not be the official song of the World Cup. This honor will ultimately go to David Guetta. The French DJ signed DNA alongside Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, American rapper Megan Thee Stallion and K-Pop singer EJAE. The song will be presented this Thursday evening before the match between Mexico and South Africa and will become the 25^e “official anthem” of the World Cup. And the 40^e “unofficial song”. Since Chile in 1962, great music stars, like Ennio Morricone, Vangelis, Daryl Hall, Shakira and R Kelly, have lent their voices to the biggest sporting competition in the world. A few hours before kick-off, Le Figaro selected the five most memorable songs.

Hermes House Band et Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive (Lalala)

How to forget it? This song marked an entire generation and an entire people. At the end of the 1990s, the Dutch group Hermes House Band covered the hit I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor in a more festive version. The cover was a hit during the 1998 World Cup, organized in France, even though it was not one of the three official anthems selected by FIFA. She’s going to steal the show The Court of the Greats by Youssou N’Dour and Axelle Red, to the very catchy The Cup of Life by the singer Ricky Martin and in the mix Together Now by Jean-Michel Jarre with Tetsuya Komuro. A certain Vincent Candela, a footballer who knew how to set the mood in the locker room, sings at the top of his lungs I Will Survive. The song acts in the minds of the Blues as a second Marseillaise. Then the supporters, aware of everything, adopted it during the competition and until the final victory against Brazil. An unforgettable 3-0 marked by two goals from Zinédine Zidane and a final one from Emmanuel Petit. On the Champs-Élysées and throughout France, the airs ofI Will Survive will accompany all celebrations. Today, the work of Gloria Gaynor and the Hermes House Band is still just as magical. The supporters still sing it every time the French team wins.

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Queen – We Are The Champions

Whoever wins the World Cup this summer will sing We Are The Champions at the final whistle. Since the 1994 competition, played in the United States, Queen’s hit has accompanied each victorious team in their celebrations. Here again, the song by the London rock group had not been officially selected by FIFA, which preferred to retain Gloryland by Daryl Hall and Sounds of Blackness. All over the world, supporters preferred the chorus « We are the champions, my friend/And we’ll keep on fighting till the end »released around twenty years earlier. That year, victory went to Romário’s Brazil. But the song will be more associated with the French team, in 1998 – in addition toI Will Survive. Blues supporters will chant it without restraint and it will then become a timeless anthem for football fans. Whether to celebrate a victory for their club or their nation.

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Shakira – Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)

It is perhaps – if we strip away all forms of chauvinism – the greatest World Cup hit of all time. Shakira is a regular at the World Cup. In 2006, the year of Zinédine Zidane’s headbutt on Materazzi, she released Hips Don’t Lie, an unofficial song. Four years later, FIFA chose her to perform one of the two official anthems of the World Cup in South Africa. And she wasn’t wrong. The Colombian icon gave birth to Car Parking and its legendary clip, which left its mark on all football fans. « Zamina-mina, eh-eh, Waka-waka, eh-eh, Zamina-mina, zangalewa, This time for Africa »she sang, accompanying this catchy melody with an easy-to-reproduce dance step. After this success, Shakira became one of FIFA’s darlings. In 2014, in Brazil, she released La La Lathe second official music of the World Cup. This year, she returns with Dai Daipresent on the official album of the World Cup. It would be time to give him the trophy.

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Vegedream – Bring the Cup home

A French song known all over the world. Bring the Cup home stands out as the biggest World Cup hit of the last ten years. To accompany the Blues of Antoine Griezmann, Hugo Lloris, Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappé at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, rapper Vegedream releases a hit quoting all of the players of the French team. He will experience immense popular success even though he was not even selected by FIFA, which presented that year Live It Up by Nicky Jam and Colors by Jason Derulo. Finally, the whole world will have remembered the “Bring the cup home, come on Blues, come on”broadcast throughout the Stade de France for the first match of Didier Deschamps’ team after the World Cup. On social networks, the song will be covered by English, Spanish, German and even Italian football fans. Vegedream will ride on this success for many years. This Thursday evening, he will be one of the guests at the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Cup in Mexico.

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Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez and Claudia Leitte – We Are One (Ole Ola)

The World Cup rhymes with summer, partying and dancing. In 2014, the official World Cup song combined all of this. Performed by rapper Pitbull, diva Jennifer Lopez and Brazilian singer Claudia Leitte, We Are One featured in its clip the yellow and green carnival tunics of the samba dancers, as well as the flags of all the participating nations. “Brasil, Brasil”, the atmosphere had to be total. The music will perhaps have less of an impact due to the disappointing performance of Brazil, eliminated in the semi-final of the competition against Germany, with a humiliating score, at home, of 7-1. Another anthem was selected for this same World Cup: Give a wayby Carlos Santana, Wyclef, Avicii and Alexandre Pires.

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