It was supposed to be one of the most spectacular entertainment moments ever staged at a World Cup.
Madonna. Justin Bieber. Shakira. Burna Boy. BTS. The Muppets.
Global superstars, football legends and an enormous stadium filled with tens of thousands of fans — all brought together during the biggest match in world football.
On paper, it sounded almost impossible to fail.
But as I watched the reaction unfold, one voice cut through all the glamour and spectacle with a brutally simple verdict.
Wayne Rooney was not impressed.
Not even slightly.
The former England captain delivered a scathing assessment of the 2026 World Cup final halftime show, joking that his favourite moment was simply “when it finished.”
And he didn’t stop there.
“I like a lot of those artists but, to be honest, I thought it was c**p,” Rooney said during the live discussion.
For an event designed to unite football and entertainment on the grandest possible stage, those words summed up a surprisingly fierce debate that erupted almost immediately.
Because while some viewers enjoyed seeing some of the world’s biggest performers together, others were asking one very simple question:
Did a World Cup final really need any of this?
“Mine was when it finished”
Rooney has spent his life immersed in football.
He knows the tension of enormous matches.
He knows what players experience inside dressing rooms during halftime.
And he knows how difficult it can be to maintain the emotional intensity of a major final when the rhythm of the game is interrupted.
So when asked about the entertainment, he didn’t pretend to love it.
“To be honest, mine was when it finished,” Rooney joked.
Then came his harsher verdict.
“I like a lot of those artists but to be honest I thought it was c**p.”
His problem wasn’t necessarily with the performers themselves.
In fact, Rooney made it clear that he genuinely liked several of the artists involved.
He specifically mentioned Burna Boy, Shakira and Bieber.
But as a complete spectacle?
It simply didn’t work for him.
“It just didn’t get me going,” he explained.
“I wanted the football to be back on. It was a bit flat.”
And perhaps that sentence captures the heart of the controversy better than anything else.
“I wanted the football to be back on.”
Because this wasn’t an awards ceremony.
It wasn’t a music festival.
It wasn’t a standalone concert.
It was the World Cup final.
For football traditionalists, nothing should be bigger than the game itself.
Madonna opened an extraordinary spectacle
FFS’
There was certainly no shortage of ambition.
Madonna, at 67, helped launch the futuristic entertainment segment with a performance of Music, accompanied by two Brazilian football icons: Ronaldo Nazário and Ronaldinho.
It was exactly the kind of surreal crossover the organisers appeared to be aiming for.
Pop royalty meeting football royalty.
Music, nostalgia and sport all colliding on one enormous stage.
Madonna appeared alongside the legendary Brazilian pair before being taken further into the stadium as the spectacle continued.
It was colourful.
It was theatrical.
It was undeniably ambitious.
But for some watching at home, the sheer scale of the entertainment seemed to create an unusual problem.
The more elaborate everything became, the further away the evening seemed to drift from the reason everyone had gathered in New Jersey in the first place.
Football.
Justin Bieber’s stripped-back moment changed the mood
Then came Justin Bieber.
At 32, Bieber took a dramatically different approach.
Rather than arriving surrounded by an enormous production, he appeared with a guitar for a World Cup-themed version of Everything Hallelujah.
His relaxed entrance contrasted sharply with the spectacle surrounding him.
He walked onto the pitch and performed the track before adapting its final line for the occasion:
“It’s the World Cup, Hallelujah.”
For Bieber fans, seeing him on such a huge global stage was undoubtedly a memorable moment.
But the reaction to the overall show remained deeply divided.
Some enjoyed the unexpected mixture of performers.
Others felt the entire sequence disrupted the tension of a match that millions — potentially billions — of viewers simply wanted to continue watching.
And Rooney clearly belonged in the second camp.
Shakira returns to the World Cup stage
Few artists are more closely associated with World Cup music than Shakira.
Her return therefore carried an enormous sense of nostalgia.
Wearing a striking pink and yellow sequined outfit, she performed alongside Burna Boy, bringing another burst of energy to the stadium.
K-pop superstars BTS also entertained the crowd with Dynamite, adding yet another enormous global fanbase to an already extraordinary line-up.
From a purely entertainment perspective, the list of names was staggering.
Yet somehow, that became part of the controversy.
There was so much happening that the halftime break began to feel like an event competing with the final rather than simply complementing it.
For some football fans, that was precisely the problem.
Liam Gallagher’s reaction was typically unforgettable
Rooney was far from the only famous name unimpressed by what he was watching.
Liam Gallagher delivered exactly the kind of reaction many would expect from him.
“This is like a bad trip,” he remarked.
He then joked:
“It’s a good job I’ve got my spiritual socks on or that halftime entertainment could have tipped me over the edge.”
It was classic Gallagher.
Funny.
Biting.
And completely unfiltered.
But beneath the humour was a sentiment echoed by plenty of viewers: the show felt strange.
Perhaps even too strange for the middle of football’s biggest match.
Sam Thompson asks the question many football fans were thinking
Sam Thompson was similarly unconvinced.
His frustration focused less on individual performances and more on the very concept of interrupting a World Cup final with such an elaborate entertainment break.
“Half time show… absolutely the last thing a football game of this magnitude needed,” he wrote.
“No one’s in the right headspace now, not even the fans.”
Then he painted a rather hilarious picture of what might have been happening behind the scenes.
“Imagine the players watching Sesame Street whilst cramping up and needing to warm up again.”
It was a joke, of course.
But it raised a legitimate sporting question.
Halftime is normally a tightly controlled period.
Players receive tactical instructions.
Medical teams assess injuries.
Muscles begin cooling almost immediately.
Managers try to change games.
Players mentally reset.
Then they return to the pitch.
Adding a major entertainment spectacle changes that familiar rhythm.
And in a World Cup final — where every minute feels enormous — even small disruptions can feel significant.
Even Roy Keane was underwhelmed
Then came Roy Keane.
A man not exactly famous for pretending to enjoy something when he doesn’t.
His assessment was more restrained than Rooney’s, but hardly glowing.
“It was a bit of an anti-climax,” he said.
Then, with a touch of humour, he added:
“But listen, it’s so nice to see Shakira.”
That line perhaps perfectly captured the strange contradiction of the evening.
Yes, these were huge stars.
Yes, there were memorable performances.
Yes, seeing Shakira return to a World Cup stage carried genuine nostalgia.
But did it improve the football experience?
That question remained unanswered.
The Muppets somehow became part of World Cup history
As if the evening wasn’t already surreal enough, The Muppets also appeared.
Yes.
At a World Cup final.
Animal on the drums.
Football’s biggest night had officially entered territory few fans could possibly have predicted.
Lorraine Kelly was among those reacting with amused disbelief.
“Just seen ANIMAL on the drums during half-time,” she wrote, before making it clear that she was still eager for the football to resume.
It was funny.
It was bizarre.
And it was probably exactly the sort of moment organisers hoped would dominate social media.
In that sense, the strategy worked.
People were certainly talking.
The problem was that not everyone was saying what the organisers might have hoped.
A World Cup final increasingly resembling a global entertainment festival
The halftime show wasn’t the only entertainment extravaganza surrounding the match.
The final also featured a closing ceremony packed with major names and celebrity appearances.
Post Malone, Nicole Scherzinger, Jennifer Hudson, Robbie Williams and Italian singer Laura Pausini were among those involved, alongside other entertainment personalities.
The celebrity presence in the stadium was equally remarkable.
Tom Cruise, Timothée Chalamet, Kylie Jenner, Matt Damon and Adrien Brody were among the famous faces reportedly attending.
Spanish actor Javier Bardem, skiing icon Lindsey Vonn and actress Julia Garner were also part of the glamorous atmosphere surrounding the event.
It all reinforced one unmistakable message.
This was no longer being presented simply as a football match.
It was being positioned as one of the biggest entertainment events on Earth.
And that is precisely where opinions began to split.
For some, it represented the modern World Cup at its most spectacular.
For others, it felt as though football itself was in danger of becoming just one part of an increasingly crowded show.
Before the glamour came chaos
Away from the performances and celebrity appearances, however, the atmosphere outside MetLife Stadium had reportedly been far less glamorous.
Thousands of supporters arrived early after being encouraged to reach the venue hours before kickoff.
The stadium, located in New Jersey outside Manhattan, can accommodate around 80,000 spectators, and the scale of the event created enormous logistical pressure.
Some supporters reportedly faced lengthy waits while attempting to enter.
Reports of technological problems with ticket scanning added to the frustration, while extensive security procedures also slowed movement around the venue.
The presence of US President Donald Trump meant enhanced security measures were in place.
For supporters who had travelled enormous distances — and in some cases paid extraordinary sums for tickets — waiting for hours outside the stadium was hardly the beginning they had imagined.
Especially considering the astonishing prices associated with attending the final.
Resale ticket prices had reportedly reached thousands of dollars, making this one of the most expensive sporting events imaginable for ordinary supporters.
And yet, despite the frustrations, thousands remained determined not to allow the chaos to destroy a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
For Argentina fans, one man made this final deeply emotional
Among the thousands making their way toward MetLife Stadium were Argentina supporters facing an emotional possibility.
Lionel Messi.
At 39, the football icon was potentially making his final World Cup appearance.
That possibility alone gave the match enormous emotional significance.
Messi had already achieved football immortality by leading Argentina to World Cup glory in Qatar in 2022.
Now, four years later, Argentina had reached another final.
But standing between them and another title was Spain.
The European champions arrived as formidable opponents.
And ultimately, it was Spain who claimed the crown.
Spain crowned world champions after extra-time drama
After all the celebrity arrivals, performances, security problems, ticket drama and halftime controversy, the evening eventually returned to what mattered most.
Football.
Spain and Argentina battled for the biggest prize in the sport.
And the contest required extra time before it was finally decided.
Ferran Torres emerged as the decisive figure, scoring the winning goal that crowned Spain the 2026 World Cup champions.
After an evening filled with noise, spectacle and endless debate, one footballing moment ultimately decided everything.
A goal.
A trophy.
A new world champion.
For Spain, it was history.
For Argentina, heartbreak.
And for football supporters, it was a reminder that no matter how many global superstars are booked to perform, the most unforgettable drama usually comes from the pitch itself.
Rooney’s seven-word joke may have captured a much bigger debate
That is why Wayne Rooney’s reaction has resonated so strongly.
“My favourite part was when it finished.”
On the surface, it was simply a savage joke about a halftime show he didn’t enjoy.
But underneath it sits a much bigger question about the direction modern football is heading.
How much entertainment is too much?
Should the World Cup final become football’s answer to the Super Bowl — combining sport with an enormous halftime spectacle designed for a global television audience?
Or is the football already enough?
There is no single answer.
Millions of viewers may have loved seeing Madonna, Bieber, Shakira, Burna Boy, BTS and The Muppets sharing one extraordinary occasion.
Others, like Rooney, simply wanted the second half to begin.
And perhaps that divide is exactly why this World Cup final will be remembered for more than just the result.
The biggest show on Earth — but was it too much?
As someone who follows the strange intersection between celebrity culture, entertainment and major sporting moments, what struck me most about this final was just how difficult it became to separate one world from another.
Football legends alongside pop icons.
Hollywood stars filling the stands.
The Muppets appearing during halftime.
Global musicians performing before millions.
And somewhere inside all of that spectacle was the small matter of deciding the world champions.
The ambition was undeniable.
The star power was extraordinary.
But Rooney’s reaction showed that bigger does not automatically mean better.
Sometimes football fans don’t need another performance.
They don’t need another celebrity.
They don’t need another elaborate production.
Sometimes they simply want the referee to blow the whistle and get the game moving again.
And on a night when Spain ultimately lifted the greatest trophy in football, perhaps the most savage review of the entertainment came from a man who knew exactly what he wanted.
Wayne Rooney just wanted the football back.
And judging by the reaction, he certainly wasn’t alone.
