RAERAE REACTS

The 2026 World Cup Final Halftime Show

The first World Cup final halftime show tried to fit the entire planet into eleven minutes. Madonna arrived in a dune buggy with two Brazilian football legends. The Muppets attacked “Seven Nation Army.” BTS turned “Dynamite” into stadium fuel. Justin Bieber brought an acoustic guitar to a party that had already invited Animal. Shakira and Burna Boy remembered this was still a World Cup. Then children, orchestras, Coldplay, Muppets, and Sesame Street characters closed the whole thing with a song about choosing love.

Was it overstuffed? Absolutely. Did I enjoy the audacity? Also absolutely.

Madonna opened with the thesis statement

Madonna entered through the stadium tunnels in a dune buggy driven by Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, which is the kind of sentence a publicist should have to say twice before anyone believes it. She performed a reworked version of “Music” mixed with “Disco Inferno” and “Danceteria.”

The important lyric was already sitting there waiting: music makes people come together. The entire show was built around that idea. Not one nation, genre, language, age group, or type of performer. The point was the collision. Madonna was not simply the opening celebrity. She announced the assignment.

The segment also understood football history. Ronaldo and Ronaldinho were not random famous men used as decorative drivers. They connected the spectacle to Brazil and to the sport’s living mythology. The show began in the tunnel, moved onto the field, and let pop culture enter through football instead of dropping a concert on top of the match.

An orchestra, “Seven Nation Army,” and Muppets with no respect for normal behavior

Gustavo Dudamel led musicians from the New York Philharmonic and Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra through “Seven Nation Army.” Iranian violinist Bijan Mortazavi joined them. Then the Electric Mayhem arrived, with Animal handling the drum chaos because apparently subtlety was not invited.

This section was one of the smartest choices in the show. “Seven Nation Army” already belongs to stadiums. Crowds around the world can sing the riff without knowing the title, the band, or a single lyric. The orchestral scale made it feel important. The Muppets kept it from becoming self-important.

They were also connected to the education theme. The Muppets and Sesame Street have spent generations making learning feel joyful. Putting them beside an international orchestra was not random family entertainment. It was the charity message with fur and better timing.

Then BTS arrived, and I still need someone to explain the “effeminate” emergency

BTS performed a football-themed version of “Dynamite” in red, black, and white stadium styling. They had more than two dozen dancers, a field the size of a small country, and roughly two minutes to remind several billion viewers why they were there.

They looked like performers doing a global sporting event. Sharp formations. Athletic movement. Team-inspired clothing. Seven adult men controlling a huge camera field while the clock tried to eat them alive. I watched the segment again specifically looking for whatever crisis Pietra Bertolazzi saw. I still do not know.

Makeup is not femininity. Expressive faces are not moral collapse. Even if the styling had been feminine, so what? The performance was built around unity, global culture, and children’s education. Reducing the group to “effeminate men” required ignoring the choreography, the scale, the purpose, the audience, and the fact that they donated their time.

The criticism also missed the visual language. Their styling pulled from football kits and Korean performance polish. The group did not look ashamed, tentative, or ornamental. They looked hired. The camera moved toward them because they knew how to fill it.

Why “Dynamite” was the boring and correct song choice

I understand fans wanting something newer or musically heavier. I would also enjoy watching BTS introduce the world to a less obvious track. This was not that assignment.

“Dynamite” is their universal handshake. The chorus is immediate, the English lyrics remove one barrier for a mixed global audience, and the song can enter after an orchestra and Muppets without requiring an emotional reset. It also grew by 43 percent in global streams around the performance, which is a fairly direct answer to whether the choice worked.

The World Cup did not need the deepest BTS song. It needed the one a football stadium could understand before the second chorus.

Justin Bieber changed the temperature

Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt appeared as Ted Lasso and Coach Beard to introduce Justin Bieber. He performed “Everything Hallelujah” with an acoustic guitar and a much looser energy.

This was the section most likely to divide people. The show had been moving at cartoon speed, then suddenly asked everyone to sit on the emotional floor. I did not hate it. The pause gave the rest of the show somewhere to climb from. I do think the transition felt like somebody changed channels for ninety seconds.

Bieber’s streaming increase afterward was enormous, so the quiet segment clearly found people. My personal reaction was mostly: sir, Animal was just drumming with an orchestra. Please understand the room you have entered.

Shakira and Burna Boy remembered that hips are also international diplomacy

Shakira and Burna Boy performed “Dai Dai,” the official tournament song, with Uganda’s Ghetto Kids. Shakira has so much World Cup history that she no longer feels like a guest. She feels like a department.

The segment brought the show back to the sport. Bare feet, feathers, children dancing, Afrobeats energy, and a refrain designed to move across languages. Burna Boy’s presence widened the map again. The show had already touched North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East through its performers and musical choices. “Dai Dai” made Africa impossible to treat as background inspiration.

The finale stopped being a concert and became the point

The PS22 Chorus joined Coldplay, Dudamel, Emmanuel Kelly, Muppets, Sesame Street characters, and other performers for “We Dance,” written by Coldplay for the occasion. Adriana Lima appeared. Fireworks went off. Screens directed viewers toward Believe in Love.

This was the least cool section and the most necessary. Children were not decoration around a celebrity lineup. They were the reason the education fund existed. Global Citizen reported that the fund had surpassed $60 million, supported 58 community organizations in 20 countries, and affected 400,000 children.

Every performer donated time. The spectacle was free to watch globally. One dollar from every tournament ticket went to the education fund. Suddenly the messy lineup made sense. It was not trying to crown one perfect headliner. It was trying to show a planet cooperating for eleven minutes.

Did the show work?

As a clean television production, it was too crowded. Transitions moved faster than emotional logic. Several artists barely had enough time to establish a mood. The orchestra deserved longer. BTS could have handled another song. Shakira could run a World Cup halftime show by herself while answering emails.

As a statement, it worked. Madonna said music brings people together. The orchestra and Muppets turned a stadium chant into international theater. BTS supplied precision and global youth culture. Bieber created a breath. Shakira and Burna Boy restored the football pulse. Children closed the show.

That sequence is why the controversy afterward annoyed me. Bertolazzi saw a performance about unity, education, donated labor, and global culture, then centered her discomfort with how Korean men looked. She managed to watch the whole world come together and still make the story smaller.