Pop music accompanies every World Cup. Here are some of the songs that celebrated the German team over the past 45 years, along with a playlist to get everyone in the spirit of the game.Soccer stars Franz Beckenbauer, Sepp Maier, Wolfgang Overath and the entire German team stiffly stood around a microphone, singing or humming along Germany’s official World Cup song that year, “Fussball ist unser Leben” (Football is our life), which included inspired lyrics translating as “Football is our life, because king football rules the world!”
Some soccer players even produced their own hits in the 1960s, including Franz Beckenbauer with “Gute Freunde” (good friends) and Sepp Maier with “Die bayerische Loreley” (the Bavarian Loreley).
Legendary goalkeeper Radi Radenkovic sang “Bin i Radi, bin i König” (Am I Radi, I am king) and Gerd Müller, accompanied by a children’s choir, performed “Dann macht es Bumm” (Then it goes boom).
Read more: 5 soccer songs that have nothing to do with soccer
Pop stars instead of players
Fortunately, times have changed. Nowadays, the players of Germany’s national team concentrate on the field instead of the sound studio.
There are of course some exceptions, such as Lukas Podolski performing an anthem to his home town, Cologne, with his “Kölsch” rock band — or Jerome Boateng rapping about soccer, its clichés and rituals together with British comedian Jack Whitehall.
Truly successful soccer songs are usually composed by established musicians. Their recipe is quite simple. Take famous pop stars, write a cheerful song for them, compose a melody that people can easily tune into and add a bit of stadium atmosphere.
That’s how world hits like the 2010 song “Waka Waka,” performed by Shakria and the African multi-culti band Freshlyground during the World Cup in South Africa, were created. Another example is “We are one” for the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, by Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez and Claudia Leitte.
While FIFA is responsible for these official World Cup songs, each country also produces its own anthem for the international soccer competition.
Groovy earworms
The secret summer superhit of the World Cup 2018 is broadcast over and over again by Germany’s public TV broadcaster ARD. The song “Zusammen” (Together) is the product of a cooperation between hip hop group Die fantastischen Vier and singer Clueso.
The catchy tune is a number 1 hit — guaranteed.
Our Spotify playlist features soccer songs of the last decades.
