What are the best FIFA songs ever? We know you have one in the back of your mind – even if you've never played the game.
The FIFA and EA Sports FC soundtracks have taken on lives of themselves – helping to promote new artists, helping to share old songs with new audiences and giving us pure bangers in the screentime between matches. So let's run through our 100 favourites over the years – sorted partly by how much of a banger these tracks were, how iconic they were for the soundtrack, but also how well they fitted into the game itself.
We asked our team for their favourites, collated the answers and even got a couple of FIFA experts involved, too. What you'll find is the ultimate list that will bring back huge nostalgia. This is about as close to NME as you'll ever find us going, so feel free to tell us how bad our music taste is @FourFourTwo.
The 100 best FIFA songs ever: 100. Glass Animals - Youth (FIFA 17)
Glass Animals were always on the cusp of becoming a really big band, depending on how poppy their next single was – think Kevin Strootman, waiting for a Premier League move. Luckily though, the group have always kept it cool and delivered banger after banger that don’t sell out. Youth is one such cut from FIFA 17.
Watch Youth on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
99. Radiohead - Myxamatosis (FIFA 2004)
Right, let’s be honest: Radiohead in a FIFA game is weird, particularly Hail To The Thief-era Radiohead. It doesn’t feel like the kind of thing they would do, and they don’t feel like the kind of band EA Sports would go for.
Nonetheless, there they are – and in fairness, Myxamatosis was rather more accessible than a lot of their increasingly outré output. And it’s a cracking song, too, so why question it?
Watch Myxamatosis on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
98. Sping King - Who Are You (FIFA 17)
Spring King were one of those groups that sort of came out of nowhere, were big for all of about 18 months and then seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth. A Michu band, if you’d like.
And just like an old re-run of Premier League Years, this will always bring back fond memories. Great jam.
Watch Who Are You on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
97. Catfish and the Bottlemen - Postpone (FIFA 17)
Ahh, Catfish. If you're not aware, the Bottlemen intend on playing the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next summer around the same time as Oasis. Postpone was good – that good?
Maybe the band need to get FIFA gamers to fill out the ground for this one. Postpone was one of the better cuts from their early stuff.
Watch Postpone on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
96. Miles Kane - Don't Forget Who You Are (FIFA 14)
Arctic Monkeys have never been on FIFA. Shocking, we know. But close friend Miles Kane has. Don’t Forget Who You Are fit the bill as the retro, guitar-smashing drive of FIFA 14. It was a hell of a soundtrack that year, with this just one of the highlights.
Watch Don't Forget Who You Are on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
95. Architecture in Helsinki - Escapee (FIFA 12)
So bubblegum sweet it makes your teeth hurt, Architecture In Helsinki shifted away from their earlier Modest Mouse-esque sound to produce the synth-heavy Moment Bends in 2011.
The Aussie outfit took their pursuit of that very on-fleek vibe so far that some critics wondered if it was actually intended as a parody – but whatever their intentions, it commanded attention and got you tapping your foot along whether you actually liked it or not.
Watch Escapee on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
94. Major Lazer - Hold The Line (FIFA 10)
Major Lazer seem tailor-made for FIFA, really. They’re big enough for your mum to have heard of, but still cool enough not to be on her Spotify playlist. The moombahton trio’s track Hold The Line is to date the only song that’s made it onto FIFA – maybe because it's an instruction to the Tottenham defence on set pieces.
This is a good un, too – and it came before they got really famous, too. Textbook EA, that.
Watch Hold The Line on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
93. Fontaines DC - Starburster (EA Sports FC 25)
Yes, it's only just been announced. Yes, it's already an all-timer.
The grungey drums, the Irish drawl blaring out like Roy Keane delivering a half-time team-talk. There's a lot of hype about Fontaines DC's latest album and this serves as the perfect appetiser for the release. Starburster is aggressive, catchy and perfect FIFA fodder.
Watch Starburster on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
92. The xx - Dangerous (FIFA 18)
A defining electronica group of the 2010s, The xx are one of those acts that just seem tailor-made for spots in adverts, films, game soundtracks and the like. Dangerous – with its distinctive brass and big, bad bassline is more of the same – though it's a lot less dark and introspective than much of the band’s earlier work.
Let’s face it, if you had the first album on in the manager’s office when you were trying to sign Paolo Dybala, it probably wouldn’t set the kind of tone you’d be looking for.
Watch Dangerous on YouTube / Listen to Spotify
91. Billie Eilish - CHIHIRO (EA Sports FC 25)
Just like the cover of Eilish's Hit Me Hard And Soft record, CHIHIRO is a song that sounds submerged beneath the water. It surfs with an elegant melody before taking a trip into the deep, as lyrics talk of an addicition-like relationship coming to an end and the cold turkey of having to survive alone.
Honestly, it's not really the first song of 2024 that we'd associate with Career Mode. Bit dark. We thought Houdini by Dua Lipa might get an airing instead.
Still, we're not complaining. Every now, a prog-pop belter needs its place on this soundtrack. We're here for it.
Watch CHIHIRO on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
90. Childish Gambino - Feels Like Summer (FIFA 19)
Writer, actor, comedian, rapper, singer, director, producer… Donald Glover is probably annoying good on FUT, too. Infectious Childish Gambino track Feels Like Summer was perhaps the most high-profile inclusion in FIFA 19 - but no one is too big for this game. With its mellow synths and trademark smooth vocals, this was a great pick for the game.
Watch Feels Like Summer on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
89. Lemaitre - We Got U ft. The Knocks (FIFA 17)
French electronic duo Lemaitre producing a stadium anthem for the masses? Yaaasss please.
Included on FIFA 17, this was another one of those songs that will become forever interwoven with the tale of Alex Hunter. Whether this was a comforting track to you when you were sent on loan to Aston Villa or a triumphant battle cry before taking to the Wembley pitch to face Gareth whats-his-name in the FA Cup final, this song was absolutely glorious.
Watch We Got U ft. The Knocks on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
88. Jungle - Beat 54 (All Good Now) (FIFA 19)
Jungle are one of the best British bands of the past decade. Though they continue to grow in stature – even winning BRIT awards – they're still cool and we still look forward to any FIFA soundtrack that they're a part of.
Beat 54 is another moody, low-tempo effort from the act that skulks rather than blares. It's perfect mood music for The Journey and still one of the band's staples.
Watch Beat 54 (All Good Now) on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
87. Chvrches - We Sink (FIFA 14)
Alright, so nowadays it sounds a bit like Bo Burnham is going to come in and sing about his horror at reaching his 30s or parodically pay homage to Jeff Bezos – but that’s not really Chvrches’ fault, is it?
In the post-MGMT age, this kind of indietronica felt right at home in a FIFA game, managing to be both achingly cool and uplifting at the same time.
Watch We Sink on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
86. ArrDee - Oliver Twist (FIFA 22)
There are those that blanch about rap music being prevalent in the FIFA games. And actually a lot of that comes from hip-hop fans who themselves would rather listen to colourful indie when they're cutting about Ultimate Team, as a break from the norm of what they listen to.
It's hard to deny ArrDee's Oliver Twist as anything other than a bop, mind. That twisted string sample is delicious, as the Brighton native chats about “just wanting some more”, chanelling the spirit of Boehly-era Chelsea. Love it.
Watch Oliver Twist on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
85. Tiggs Da Author - Run (FIFA 16)
This track was featured in the movie Bridget Jones’s Baby but we’d wager that the FIFA stamp of approval was a much bigger deal for Tiggs. Run is a fun, fast-paced pop song that was popular that it was later reworked with an added verse from Lady Leshur (of “brush your teeth” fame).
Back on FIFA 16, it was one of the quirkier tracks on the playlist. A bit like having Carl Jenkinson in your FUT squad for banter.
Watch Run on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
84. Foals - Mountain At My Gates (FIFA 16)
Foals combine the sophistication of county-mates Radiohead with the thick distortion of the indie scene they were born from – yet they’re comfortable headlining festivals and appearing on daytime radio.
Mountain At My Gates is arguably the most perfect piece of music they’ve ever produced. If it were a football team it would be Leeds United under Bielsa: powerful, beautiful and suddenly taking you by surprise by upping the noise in the final third.
What a song. We couldn't not include this, now could we?
Watch Mountain At My Gates on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
83. Crystal Fighters - Follow (FIFA 13)
If we have a criticism of FIFA’s earlier soundtracks, it is that for a long time they were very Anglocentric in their outlook, picking songs that evoked the ginnels of Manchester rather football in the favelas.
The Latin influences punch through immediately on Follow, though, with the English-Spanish act fittingly offering up a song that stayed true to the prevailing ethos while still paving the way for the likes of Bad Bunny to go all the way in later years.
Watch Follow on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
82. Kygo - ID (FIFA 16)
No doubt about it, Kygo has soundtracked the anthem of that gap year in Thailand that you never went on. Tropical house is a maligned 'genre' but given his Norwegianness, poppy melodies and bouncy beats, EA just had to give him a tune sooner or later.
ID is a decent compromise – it doesn’t feature an annoying vocalist, instead eschewing chart ambitions for being a subtle and simple piece of chilled out bliss. Kygo later added vocals to this one, courtesy of X Factor’s Ella Henderson. We prefer this version, though.
Watch ID on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
81. Madeon - Imperium (FIFA 15)
In the middle of the last decade, Nantes-born producer Hugo Leclercq - better known by his mononym Madeon - became the next big name in a French house scene that included the likes of Daft Punk and Justice.
Imperium was as big and bold as the EDM that had been scattered across FIFA in the 2010s, while still pumping with the French house of the previous decade. It’s one of those tracks on FIFA 15 that was impossible to ignore, whether you loved it or despised it.
Watch Imperium on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
80. Little Simz - Fear No Man (FIFA 22)
FIFA could have picked virtually anything off Little Simz’s stunning Sometimes I Might Be Introvert and it would have been a smash, but Fear No Man was exactly the right choice.
The track wears its African influences on its sleeve and unavoidably makes any football fan think of the 2010 World Cup as a result – but is unmistakably 2020s London and, most importantly, an absolute banger. You’d spend an extra minute or two on your team selection just to hear it to completion.
Watch Fear No Man on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
79. Loyal - Moving As One (FIFA 17)
An anthemic, thumping, drum-led anthem of a FIFA track. You can actually imagine this being the matchday chant of some small and just-happy-to-be-here South American nation at a World Cup. If you didn’t get pumped selecting your team during this song, you either had no soul, or you were the manager of West Brom and therefore contractually obliged to be miserable.
Watch Moving As One on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
78. Prides - Out of the Blue (FIFA 15)
Sounding for all the world like Glasvegas’ drummer collaborating with Robyn, the short-lived Glaswegian band provided this aspirational anthem to the FIFA soundtrack hot on the heels of performing at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
This is what sports music sounded like in 2014, kids. This, and exactly this.
Watch Out of the Blue on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
77. Air - Surfing On A Rocket (FIFA 2005)
Like Arsene Wenger in the late '90s, EA was a dab-hand for bringing great French exports to wider attention – and AIR are one of the greatest Gallic groups of all time in our opinion. The downtempo electronica duo are best known for Moon Safari tracks Sexy Boy and Kelly Watch The Stars but were chosen in 2005, with their track, Surfing on a Rocket. It’s one of the more understated songs of FIFA’s early days, but one of the best tracks on that particular year’s line-up.
Watch Surfing On A Rocket on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
76. Seu Jorge - Tive Razao (FIFA 07)
Seu Jorge might be best known for his spine-tingling David Bowie covers in Portuguese, but FIFA lovers of a certain vintage will know him as the soothing, scratchy voice on this mystical ditty. A great example of the phenomenal world music the FIFA bods collect every year for our listening pleasure.
Also, a song that immediately gets FFT in the mood for a Nandos.
Watch Tive Razao on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
75. Society - Protocol (FIFA 17)
Forget FIFA for one second, this might actually be one of the best tunes of the past 10 years, full stop. Seriously, how was this not more popular outside of a computer game?
The crashing symbols, the powerful lyrics, the wailing vocals. It belongs over the closing credits of a Guy Richie movie. Instead, we got to breathe it in after scoring a late winner with Adebayo Akinfenwa in League Two. We’re not complaining; in fact, we’re just grateful FIFA brought it to our attention.
Watch Protocol on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
74. Borns - Faded Heart (FIFA 18)
There's something very ‘David Bowie at Eurovision’ about Borns – and we don't mean that as an insult. Given that much of FIFA's soundtrack can be described as similar, there was always going to be room on this list for him, right?
Watch Faded Heart on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
73. Sam Sparro - Black & Gold (FIFA 09)
This might just be us, but this is the archetypal ‘only know it from FIFA’ song out of all of them on this list.
Serving as a kind of 21st-century funkatronic take on Peggy Lee’s Fever, Black and Gold was the standout song on the FIFA 09 soundtrack, and the perfect accompaniment for endlessly R2-curling free kicks into the top corner in the Be A Pro training mode that preceded the menu.
Watch Black & Gold on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
72. Broods - Peach (FIFA 19)
Jangly synth, crashing drums and some indeterminable lyrics occasionally involving the word “Peach” - this is so obviously a FIFA song. Another one that would snap you into action with its pure energy. A half-time pep talk from Rafa Benitez in song form, and one you could whack on at a garden party and get a few fist bumps from music lovers and FIFA fans alike. Instantly likeable and instantly recognizable as a song from the game.
Watch Peach on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
71. Kasabian - Comeback Kid (FIFA 17)
This was a huge moment for EA – the moment they commissioned a theme song for their The Journey mode. And who else would you ask to soundtrack such a thing?
The fifth single from Kasabian’s 2017 album For Crying Out Loud, Comeback Kid had FIFA written all over it. A hark back to the classic days of thudding guitar and mellow basslines, it was as reliable as Tony Pulis in a relegation scrap.
Not the band’s greatest ever banger, but a safe pair of hands for a FIFA playlist and one you could kick back and enjoy on a rainy afternoon’s FIFA sesh.
Watch Comeback Kid on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
70. Two Door Cinema Club - Sleep Alone (FIFA 13)
The Northern Irish band really had their moment in the sun around this period, making themselves the default inoffensive choice for any and all compilers of video game music.
Initially a kind of charmingly youthful evolution of We Are Scientists’ sound, Two Door Cinema Club were more mature and self-assured by the time they go to Sleep Alone, taken from their second album. We don’t think you’d get quite so much of something like this on a FIFA soundtrack now; but then, that’s why we like it.
Watch Sleep Alone on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
69. LSD - Genius (FIFA 19)
While the first two editions of The Journey opted for high-octane, laddish intros, FIFA went for something different in the final instalment. The title sequence features Kim Hunter – Alex’s little sister – juggling a football career with her homework, soundtracked by Genius, from supergroup LSD (that’s Labrinth, Sia and Diplo).
It’s a theatrical song and as you can imagine from the artists involved, immaculately produced with excellent vocals. Great pick all round.
Watch Genius on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
68. Off Bloom - Falcon Eye (FIFA 18)
Slow, pulsing and with a fantastically produced instrument, Falcon Eye was one of the highlights of FIFA 18. No, you've never heard of Off Bloom: but you didn't need to have. This was the soundtrack to whipping free-kicks way over the bar in practice (or was that just us?).
Watch Falcon Eye on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
67. Peter, Bjorn and John - Young Folks (FIFA 08)
Along with Justice v Simian’s We Are Your Friends, this infectious whistling classic was a staple of student indie club nights for years after its release in summer 2006.
For those of feeling all the older, it’s about as nostalgic as it’s possible to get of a golden age when we still had reasonable hairlines, jawlines and waistlines. Shout out to the old Leeds Uni Tunnel Club crowd: chances are we tried and failed to pull you to Young Folks at some point.
Watch Young Folks on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
66. Billie Eilish - you should see me in a crown (FIFA 19)
Enough of the fun, the serene, the anthemic – you should see me in a crown took things to a dark and terrifying place and we loved it. A creepy beat mixed with sinister lyrics (and a music video which is genuinely horrific) offer something a bit different to the norm on FIFA 19 (oh, and it's named after a line that a serial killer uttered in BBC show, Sherlock).
Not the song you’d want coming on while playing late at night by yourself with your parents out for the evening. Spookier than Neil Warnock grinning menacingly outside your bedroom window.
Watch you should see me in a crown on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
65. Portugal. The Man - Live In The Moment (FIFA 18)
Portugal. The Man may well be considered a one-hit wonder in the United Kingdom, following the explosive success of Feel It Still, but the Alaska-based rockers – yes really, Alaska: it's just them and Sarah Palin – have been staples of FIFA soundtrack a few times over the years. Live In The Moment is every bit as big, crashing and anthemic as an indie song in FIFA needs to be these days.
For our money, it’s definitely the best thing that Portugal has contributed to FIFA. That’s Portugal. The Man, not Portugal. The Country.
Watch Live In The Moment on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
64. Bomba Estereo - Soy Yo (FIFA 16)
EA love a Spanish-speaking artist on the jukebox. At least we think it’s Spanish and not Portuguese…?
Viral hit Soy Yo, featured actress Sarai Gonzalez, has over 23 million views on YouTube and is the biggest track on an album that scooped a Latin Grammy. Yet it’s better known for being that shouty song on the FIFA edition that Jordan Henderson on the cover and being in a Deezer advert. You win some, you lose some, eh Bomba Estereo?
Watch Soy Yo on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
63. Doves - Black and White Town (FIFA 06)
Alongside Elbow, Doves offered an updated take on Britpop to ensure it evolved into something just different enough to take the English indie-pop scene into the new millennium without frightening Oasis fans into realisations about their losing battle against the relentless march of time.
Musically upbeat but lyrically nihilistic, Black and White Town offers a scathing commentary on life in the kinds of satellite towns around England that only the lucky and socially mobile are able to escape – but if you don’t listen to the words, it’s perfect menu music.
Watch Black and White Town on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
62. Disclosure - Omen ft. Sam Smith (FIFA 16)
It’s not often that returning to the same collaboration spells genius – look at Mourinho at Chelsea. Disclosure’s first hit with Sam Smith, Latch, became a global smash that would catapult both into superstardom. But for our money, Omen is better.
This was a great way of crowbarring a name as big as Sam Smith onto FIFA 16 with going down too poppier a route. The track has the typical stuttering beat and squelching synths that were all the rage when EA first started taking this curation business seriously, and though it was a big hit, it never felt overplayed or like it had overstayed its welcome.
Watch Omen ft. Sam Smith on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
61. Kwabs - Walk (FIFA 15)
Like so many Golden Boy nominees, Kwabs should have been much bigger than he actually was. Walk might be a one-hit wonder but it's no Mambo No.5 – this was a stuttering, classy number that is synonymous with a stunning Barcelona side to match it.
Watch Walk on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
60. Yeasayer - ONE (FIFA 11)
If we’re being harsh, Yeasayer were a poor man’s MGMT. If we’re being truthful, ONE is the greatest song that MGMT never wrote. Included in FIFA 11, the psychedelic pop jam is catchy as hell and also made its way onto Grand Theft Auto, too. The perfect song to soundtrack either robbing a car or signing Andres Iniesta for Ipswich Town.
Watch ONE on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
59. Avelino, Stormzy & Skepta - Energy (FIFA 18)
The signature song of FIFA 18, the extremely assured hip-hop track was a confident choice for a series that was by now long-established as the king of football games.
Part of the requirement of top-drawer menu music is a recognisable opening, and Energy certainly provides that with a slow-burning percussive but drumless opening that then explodes – after a bar or two of a capella rapping – into an irresistible drop. That’s how you make a modern FIFA song.
Watch Energy on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
58. Peggy Gou - It Makes You Forget (Itgehane) (FIFA 19)
It Makes You Forget (Itgehane) is a slice of serene disco that’s both catchy and relatively untapped in the mainstream. “Probably the only thing that calms me down after conceding another bicycle kick goal in FIFA 19,” says one YouTube comment on the official video to this song. It’s got 1,700 likes. Perhaps everyone relates.
Watch It Makes You Forget (Itgehane) on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
57. The Strokes - Machu Picchu (FIFA 12)
Bless them, The Strokes will always be an early 00s band to all of us… but their big comeback in 2011 nonetheless captured the attention for a spell, even if the new album, Angles, struggled to live up to the hype.
The shredded guitar and electronic bloops that mark out the melody sound a lot more like Julian Casablancas’ mid-hiatus solo work than it does like a traditional Strokes song, but that Nikolai Fraiture bassline tethers it to the band’s earlier catalogue. The FIFA soundtrack should reflect the time each incarnation came out, and what better way to do that in 2011 than by reminding us that nobody at the time seemed quite sure how to move on from the distinct sound of the previous decade?
Watch Machu Picchu on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
56. Fred again.. - Adore u (EA FC 24)
Fred again.. has enjoyed a rapid rise akin to Lamine Yamal in recent years, becoming a festival superstar and chart botherer – and Adore u is not just his catchiest effort, it's the one that's cut through with the FIFA crowd. It's iconic these days – though once someone tells you that the vocal sounds a bit like Winnie the Pooh, you'll never unhear it.
Watch Adore u on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
55. The Automatic - Monster (FIFA 08)
While some songs slither onto the FIFA jukebox simply on the basis of being super-cool, others make their way there through sounding worthy of being a stadium chant. Monster, by Welsh rockers, The Automatic, is the latter: a melodramatic tale of psychedelic drug use and scary late nights, Monster was one of the more memorable tracks from FIFA 08.
“You get labelled ‘one hit wonder’, it's not like we've disappeared without a trace,” Robin Hawkins of the band claimed. “We've got a second album coming out, which in my opinion is full of much better songs.” The Automatic are yet to have another hit. But what a hit it was.
Watch Monster on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
54. Foster the People - Call It What You Want (FIFA 12)
Foster the People frontman Mark Foster used to write radio jingles. Hence why he had a knack for getting a song stuck in your head. Call It What You Want was just that – one of the catchier tracks on FIFA 12 but not as overplayed as the Californian act’s biggest hit, Pumped Up Kicks.
Watch Call It What You Want on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
53. Black Keys - Tighten Up (FIFA 11)
Seven albums in, The Black Keys suddenly stumbled upon popularity with their Brothers record, catapulting them into a (sort of) mainstream light. Tighten Up was a gloriously soulful, guitar-spangling song that married two of EA’s favourite genres into something typically FIFA. It still pops today.
Watch Tighten Up on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
52. Matt and Kim - Daylight (Troublemaker remix) (FIFA 10)
Remixes became a big part of FIFA in the 2010s, and this was one of the first to be included, as Troublemaker's mix on Daylight gave the original track a euphoric backing of synth horns. It's the ultimate anthem for anyone who's got lost in this game, with the lyrics asserting that, “in the daylight, I don't pick up my phone”. Whew. We feel seen.
Watch Daylight on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
51. Caribou - Odessa (FIFA 11)
Another of those songs that you’ll probably know even if you’ve not dipped into Caribou’s catalogue of albums – though you really should, because they’re very good.
Odessa captures what the solo artist is all about, offering a 21st-century electronic interpretation of steel drums and maracas to brilliant effect. You can feel the Caribbean sun on your neck just listening to it.
Watch Odessa on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
50. Remi Wolf - Quiet On Set (FIFA 23)
The master of joyful 2020s pop lent one of her best tracks to a recent FIFA, featuring her trademark clapalong chants, whoops and 90s Nickelodeon sensibility. The baby voice section towards the end may grate on some, but if that killer line about Five Guys doesn’t get you then frankly you have no soul. A straight-up bop.
Watch Quiet On Set on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
49. Joy Crookes - Feet Don't Fail Me Now (FIFA 22)
Ohhhhh, yes. This song will forever go down as the theme tune to the Lionesses' summer triumph in 2022 since the BBC used the track – and Arsenal fan Crookes herself in the intro alongside some of the players – for their coverage. But just as Beth Mead was a baller before the Wembley stage, don't forget where you first heard this one.
This was a big one for the early 2020s. Female players were being added to the game and including a women's football anthem was a great play from EA. Top song, too.
Watch Feet Don't Fail Me Now on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
48. Casiokids - Fot I Hose (FIFA 10)
Norway has given us Ole Gunnar Solksjaer, John Arne Riise and Erling Haaland, in the football world. In the music world, it’s not quite delivered since the days of A-Ha.
Fot I Hose by Norwegian act Casiokids is a typically hipster indie-dance jam, with shuffling rhythms perfect for FIFA. It was also used extensively on Channel 4 comedy Friday Night Dinner (“Shalom Jackie, you look nice”).
Watch Fot I Hose on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
47. Blessed Madonna ft. Dua Lipa - Love is Religion (FIFA 21)
Dua Lipa is playing Wembley and Anfield next summer – and should probably add this one to the setlist for the occasion. The north Londoner has gone stratospheric in recent years but no one is ever too big for FIFA. This was the perfect cut from Dua for the game – because let's face it, New Rules or One Kiss would have got a bit stale, wouldn't they?
Watch Love is Religion on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
46. Duffy - Mercy (FIFA 09)
EA have often tapped into up-and-coming soul artists before they hit the big time. By the time Mercy was included in FIFA 09 though, Duffy wasn’t exactly a secret – think Dortmund buying Bellingham.
Mercy came out at a time when Stewart Downing was up-and-coming and New Labour was winding down – a strange time for Britain, indeed. This will forever be an absolute bop, however, and for that, we thank Duffy.
Watch Mercy on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
45. Sam Fender - Play God (FIFA 19)
Another song which transcends gaming and stands alone as a superb song from the modern era in its own right. Yet more proof the music bods at FIFA care about the current, the fresh and the lesser-known hymns of our times.
Play God is a face-meltingly good tune, with an awesome guitar riff and Fender’s phenomenal voice intertwining to turn the FIFA sesh in your bedroom into a beer-soaked festival tent. He's tailor-made for this game.
Watch Play God on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
44. Oasis - Lyla (FIFA 06)
One for the dads, and FourFourTwo editors. The dark brooding guitars coupled with Liam Gallagher’s aggressive wailing made Lyla the perfect song for preparing for a derby on career mode.
Thomas Gravesen, even in virtual form, would be hella pumped for a trip to the Ibrox with this banger on in the background. Oasis’s best post-'90s song? Definitely. As you were.
Watch Lyla on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
43. Lykke Li - I'm Good I'm Gone (FIFA 09)
Sweden are best known for three things. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, IKEA and great pop music. Meatballs at a push.
I’m Good, I’m Gone became a minor hit for Lykke Li, thanks in part to a FIFA feature on 2009’s game. As one of the defining songs of its scene at the time, it was a fitting track to include.
Watch I'm Good I'm Gone on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
42. Robbie Williams - It's Only Us (FIFA 2000)
The title track for FIFA 2000, which confusingly opened with black and white figures standing over a memorial plaque to the game series before being blown away bright floodlights and distinctly PS2-era graphics of Sol Campell performing his motion capture and Robbie Williams’ singing face getting scanned into the game.
The video celebrated FIFA’s increasing use of new technology for its graphics and animations; the song was a Manic Street Preachers knock-off that was released as a double A-side to She’s The One. Had Williams not been the biggest thing in the UK at the time, there’s no way this would have made it into the game, let alone as the title track.
Still, its resemblance to Australia makes it sound sufficiently Renford Rejects to get a pass as fitting the football aesthetic of the time.
Watch It's Only Us on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
41. Muse - Supermassive Black Hole (FIFA 07)
Released at the very height of Muse’s critical acclaim, and a template-setter for the rest of the band’s career. Muse moved away from their more interesting early epic noodling, instead transparently shifting into trying to come up with yet more overwrought anthems that could fill out some of the duller moments in Olympics opening ceremonies.
They never got there again, but Supermassive Black Hole remains lightning in a bottle as they found the perfect sweet spot between their incarnations. A killer guitar riff, pounding accompaniment from the bass and drums, and ludicrous falsetto vocals throughout… it’s all very FIFA in the 2000s.
Watch Supermassive Black Hole on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
40. Kasabian - Fast Fuse (FIFA 09)
Leicester-based (though they never mention it) band Kasabian are one of the most featured bands ever on FIFA – Fast Fuse even appeared on the game before it was actually on a Kasabian album.
The Tarantino-esque jam is one of the highlights of Mercury-nominated record West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, released in summer 2009. Gamers had been hearing it since FIFA was released in the October, prior, however. Guitarist Sergio Pizzorno is also really good at football, as turns on Soccer AM and Soccer Aid prove.
Watch Fast Fuse on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
39. Royal Blood - Trouble's Coming (FIFA 21)
Littlehampton’s finest duo have been upsetting guitar purists for a decade now, with their 2020 single Trouble’s Coming earning that hallowed place on the FIFA roster.
The thumping, dance-music-infused song has also found its way onto the soundtracks for NHL 21, Forza Horizon 5 and Dirt 5, while it also features as Viper’s entrance song from the 2024 Mark Clattenburg-approved reboot of Gladiators. Royal Blood also get a bonus point for having a band member that shares the same name as a bona fide Barclaysman, as those pounding drums you can hear are the work of Ben Thatcher.
Watch Trouble's Coming on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
38. Phoenix ft Ezra Koenig - Tonight (FIFA 23)
Two decades after the indie sleaze scene took hold in New York, two of the genre’s big fish joined up for a collaboration as French quartet Phoenix hooked up with Vampire Weekend signing Ezra Koenig for a catchy single that found its way onto both FIFA 23 and baseball game MLB The Show 23.
The song also got an airing at last month’s Olympic Games closing ceremony, where Phoenix’s set was a highlight in a very, very long evening at the Stade de France.
Watch Tonight on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
37. Celeste - Stop This Flame (FIFA 21)
A song that football fans will instantly recognise, as Stop This Flame was not only on the FIFA 21 soundtrack but was also Sky Sports’ Saturday Night Football and Super Sunday theme.
Sampling Nina Simone’s classic version of Sinnerman, this uptempo piano-driven R&B tune was released shortly after AL-born, Brighton-raised Celeste topped BBC Music’s Sound of 2020 poll. Oh, and it's another FIFA tune to have been adopted by the Gladiators reboot, with Fire using it as her walk-on music.
Watch Stop This Flame on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
36. Bastille - Send Them Off (FIFA 17)
Aside from having a hilariously good name for a song on FIFA, Send Them Off! was one of the best songs on a very good year for FIFA music.
Bastille do haunting anthems better than most and this one, with it’s almost religious, hymnal backing track and eery lyrics made it an instant favourite among players of the world’s biggest-selling football computer game.
Watch Send Them Off on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
35. Imagine Dragons - On Top of the World (FIFA 13)
It was 2012, and so it was necessary to find a song with the kind of preppy whistly sound that had been popularised by Peter, Bjorn and John and had become the go-to sound for late 00s/early 2010s sitcoms like Community and New Girl.
So the music selectors at EA must have been punching the air when they stumbled onto On Top of the World, an apotheosis so thoroughly reached that everyone immediately decided to knock that whole trend on the head and move onto something a bit less achingly twee.
Watch On Top of the World on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
34. The Dandy Warhols - We Used To Be Friends (FIFA 2004)
FIFA got on board landfill indie bus long before the term was even coined, and showed admirable foresight for the coming trend with their inclusion of the Dandy Warhols as early as 2003, just as the band’s own sound was moving in that direction.
The main issue, really, is that listening to this makes you expect all the players to be wearing winklepickers, which are desperately ill-suited to effective passing football.
Watch We Used To Be Friends on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
33. MGMT - Kids (FIFA 09)
Between Kids and Time To Pretend, 2007 and 2008 belonged to MGMT, whose synth-pop classic debut album Oracular Spectacular was presumably released just too later to be included on FIFA 08.
Kids manages both to hit upon the prevailing pop style of the time – taking more than a little bit of a cue from Of Montreal’s venture into a similar sound – and provide an instant hit of nostalgia that has only grown now that it is, in fact, nostalgic. It’s fitting that FIFA 09 was the first to include custom goal celebrations, because Kids is the perfect soundtrack to practice those windmills and cartwheels to.
Watch Kids on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
32. Ana Tijoux - 1977 (FIFA 11)
The commitment that FIFA’s curators show to including music from all around the world is staggering. French-Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux’s 1977 was an underground hit in Chile, before finding its way into the English-speaking world.
The string-laden, scattering track is not only effortlessly cool and catchy but perfect background fodder if you can’t make out any of the words. It was also used in the iconic meth-peddling epic Breaking Bad.
Watch 1977 on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
31. Morrissey - Irish Blood, English Heart (FIFA 2005)
For the coiffured controversialist crooner to lend one of his screeds on sociopolitical identity to a FIFA game is… a bit odd, but that’s the mid-00s for you. We presume they wanted The Smiths and couldn’t get them.
And now let us direct you to this excellent review of Morrissey’s awful, awful novel, because it’s better than anything else we have to say about the subject at hand.
Watch Irish Blood, English Heart on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
30. LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing At My House (FIFA 06)
LCD Soundsystem were to explode in the 2000s into a cult act with one of the most beloved albums of the century, Sound of Silver. In 2006, however, many got their first taste of the band from FIFA.
Earlier cut Daft Punk Is Playing At My House though is every bit as silly, high-energy and messy as the title suggests. It’s one of the New York project’s most beloved tracks, however, and it introduced a whole new audience to the act’s music.
Watch Daft Punk Is Playing At My House on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
29. Chase & Status - No Problem (FIFA 12)
Sounding like the template for every bit of WWE entrance music of the past ten years, No Problem helps mark FIFA’s transition away from indie and more into UK electronic/hip hop/drum and bass, where it has stayed for the past decade or so.
A distinctive Zimbabwean-inflected spoken word part at the beginning gradually gathers steam until rising into a full-on strobe-laden breakdown reminiscent of The Prodigy. It won’t have been everyone’s cup of tea, and is a bit ill-fitting for FIFA in truth, but does help modernise the series.
Watch No Problem on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
28. Massive Attack - Splitting the Atom (FIFA 11)
Legendary trip-hop act Massive Attack returned for their fifth album Heligoland in 2011 after a long hiatus. Of course, an act as funereal, chilled and damned cool as them had to feature on FIFA.
Splitting the Atom sent EA full circle in some ways – it was the third song that Blur and Gorillaz frontman (and …Atom producer) Damon Albarn had worked on that was included in the FIFA series after the huge popularity of Song 2 and 19-2000 defined earlier games. In some ways though, this track showed how far EA had come.
It’s mature, not afraid to be a little dark and it’s a sign of how big the soundtrack had become that not even the best song off of a Massive Attack album could be featured. In case you’re wondering, Paradise Circus – the theme tune to Idris Elba show Luther – is definitively the best song off Heligoland.
Watch Splitting the Atom on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
27. Moby - Bodyrock (FIFA 2001)
Perhaps Moby has never been cool. Eminem trash-talked him in Without Me, claiming that "nobody listens to techno". Perhaps Bodyrock was never cool either with its nonsensical raps of "to the beat, yo, body rock yo, we rock the party".
But back in 2001, this was the very height of hip. How you doing, fellow kids?
Watch Bodyrock on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
26. Jungle - Busy Earnin' (FIFA 15)
Jungle’s third single earned a place on FIFA 15 after becoming one of the 2014 festival season’s breakout anthems. It’s the kind of song that makes you feel 200 per cent cooler when it comes on your Airpods as you walk down the vegetable aisle in Asda.
The band themselves knew how good it was, as they admitted last year that they ‘spent three years trying to make another Busy Earnin’’ before conceding that ‘you’re never going to find that same feeling again’. It's true. It's that good.
Watch Busy Earnin' on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
25. Foals - The Runner (FIFA 20)
Foals have been England’s best indie rock outfit for more than a decade and their 2019 single The Runner was everything you want from a FIFA song. An epic, swaggering, muscular guitar-led ditty, it first appeared on the band’s sixth album, Everything Not Saved will be Lost - Part 2.
Complete with a stunning and relentless guitar solo, the ‘keep on running’ chorus is a natural fit for the game.
Watch The Runner on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
24. Empire of the Sun - Alive (FIFA 14)
EA can’t resist Australian dance-pop acts with theatrical costumes and a love of soft synthesisers. OK, their suggestion of “Hey guys, have you heard of Empire of the Sun?” was so late it would be like asking your mates if they’d heard of Edinson Cavani now.
But Alive was still a bop. The alternative pop during the middle of the 2010s was strong indeed on FIFA. This was one of the biggest and best choruses going, too.
Watch Alive on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
23. Bloc Party - Helicopter (FIFA 06)
Bloc Party are one of the most iconic bands of the UK music scene in the noughties. They also boast the best claim that anyone has to a famous AFC Bournemouth fan.
Bloc Party just had to be on FIFA at one stage or another, and it’s fitting that Helicopter – arguably their finest single – was included. It’s as fast-paced, exciting and cool as Theo Walcott was back then.
Watch Helicopter on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
22. Gorillaz - Rhinestone Eyes (FIFA 11)
Damon Albarn knows a thing or two about songs that work well in sporting environments, as barely a North American sports arena exists that doesn’t belt out Song 2 on a weekly basis. While Rhinestone Eyes from Albarn’s Gorillaz side project doesn’t quite have the same endorphin hit as the aforementioned Blur tune, its hypnotic rhythms were a perfect fit for console loading screens.
A highlight from the criminally underrated Plastic Beach record of 2009, Rhinestone Eyes began life as a dub-electro drawl inspired by Japanese dance music, before becoming a chorus-less pop tune backed by 2D on a megaphone. Ironically, it's also a song about consumerism, too, almost foreshadowing the Ultimate Team boom of the decade.
Watch Rhinestone Eyes on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
21. The Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr A (FIFA 08)
The silly pop of The Hoosiers sort of came out of nowhere around the mid-00s. Goodbye Mr A – their biggest hit – actually featured lead singer Irwin Sparkes (yes, that’s his name) playing FIFA in the video.
Reading - Sparkes’ home team - against Manchester United, to be precise. Is it the best song ever written? Maybe. Just maybe. (No. – Ed.) In terms of its FIFAness, it’s 21st for us.
Watch Goodbye Mr A on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
20. Jai Paul - He (FIFA 20)
FIFA songs aren’t all about guitars and indie singalongs. The mysterious and mercurial Jai Paul’s 2019 single He has the London-born star’s signature shimmering electronic soul sound, mixing synths with his Prince-esque falsetto.
The single was Jai Paul’s first release since 2012’s influential Jasmine and his first material since the unauthorised 2013 leak of his unfinished songs and demos that caused Paul to withdraw from public view for the next six years. We're so glad he came back – just for the FIFA contribution.
Watch He on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
19. Tom Grennan - Found What I've Been Looking For (FIFA 18)
Following the rebrand of the Premier League in 2018, Found What I’ve Been Looking For was used by Sky Sports as their theme music for two seasons. The re-recorded version – featuring lyrics of “Feel the magic when they sing my name” – is instantly recognisable.
It’s not particularly innovative for EA to whack the song on FIFA, but it’s most welcome, indeed. Found What I’ve Been Looking For is one of the most soaring stadium songs of a generation, forever synonymous with the rise of Mohamed Salah, the years that Manchester City dominated England, and thanks to FIFA, hours of fun investing time and hard-earned cash into FUT.
It’s still by far and away the best thing that Tom Grennan has put his name to. Apart from the Gilette song.
Watch Found What I've Been Looking For on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
18. John Newman - Love Me Again (FIFA 14)
Is Love Me Again the greatest pop song ever? Well, that’s subjective, so you can’t definitively tell us that it isn’t.
But it’s not number one on this particular countdown. Crashing pianos, brass, an infectious chorus and a driving rhythm make this one of the most underrated No.1s of the 2010s. Absolute masterstroke from EA to include it on FIFA and a nice hark back to some of the northern soul-inspired pop jams of years gone by.
Watch Love Me Again on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
17. The Jam - Town Called Malice (FIFA 2004)
Honestly? A bit of a strange inclusion, some 21 years after its release, and a bit at odds with the kind of retro option EA usually went for in the 2000s. In fact, we’re going to say it: FIFA 2004 had perhaps the weirdest soundtrack of all the instalments. Radiohead were on there, for god’s sake, and that’s just bizarre.
But hey, it’s a great song, so who’s complaining?
Watch Town Called Malice on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
16. Apollo 440 - Stop The Rock (FIFA 2000)
A track seemingly written to be included in sports video games, the Status Quo-inspired tune could only possibly have been released in 1999, when just having a cool computerised voice singing its repetitive drone actually sounded quite cool.
It should really have been the title track for FIFA 2000, but snagging Robbie Williams on condition that Port Vale got put in the game meant it was relegated to being the best song on the menus instead…to the point we were shocked to load up the FMV on YouTube and find it wasn’t Apollo 440. Apparently you can stop the rock.
Watch Stop The Rock on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
15. Glass Animals - Heat Waves (FIFA 21)
It's really quite incredible that this song has made it this far up this list. Not because of the song itself, or even the band, who have gone from strength to strength in recent years – but because this piece of music is synonymous with COVID-19-enforced restrictions.
As everyone knows, lockdown football was the absolute worst, with pay-per-view restrictions on Sheffield United games, crowd noise pumped into empty stadiums and fixtures postponed due to players dropping like flies. Still, Heat Waves brings back happy memories of sitting indoors on the PlayStation. A rare example from the centre-section of the FIFA/TikTok Venn diagram.
14. Scissor Sisters - Take Your Mama (FIFA 2005)
Possibly included as the antidote to the swaggeringly laddy The Streets’ Fit And You Know It on the 2005 soundtrack, EA brilliantly opted to also include a wonderfully camp Scissor Sisters song about a man taking his mum out to gay bars in New Orleans.
Take Your Mama is a joyful celebration of queer culture by a band that stands as exactly that just in general. Its inclusion in a football game in 2004 was a very welcome move… but more than that, it’s also an absolute banger.
Watch Take Your Mama on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
13. Kasabian - Club Foot (FIFA 13)
Having lost several battles but unequivocally won the war, EA were undeterred by the fact Pro Evolution Soccer had already used Club Foot for PES5 some eight years earlier.
That may be the explanation for why it took so long to include the most obvious choice of the 2000s to make it it into a FIFA game, as if to make up for lost time. Kasabian had already been featured three times by the time they got to it, and were featured twice more again afterwards – but none are more fitting for a football game than Club Foot.
Watch Club Foot on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
12. Kings of Leon - Red Morning Light (FIFA 2004)
More than 20 years on from their breakthrough album, Kings of Leon are still at it, with their 2024 release Can We Please Have Fun getting their best review for years, but nothing has topped their stomping first album Youth & Young Manhood, which kicked off with Red Morning Light in 2003.
This garage rock ditty was the opening song on FIFA 2004 and worked just as well on EA Sports’ signature title as it did mid-noughties indie dancefloors. This was one from back in the day when the game would start with a intro video – and this one featured Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho and Alessandro Del Piero running away from helicopter searchlights to this tune. A huge memory.
Watch Red Morning Light on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
11. Fatboy Slim - The Rockafeller Skank (FIFA 99)
Another great example of FIFA’s ability to evoke a specific period through its choice of title track – particularly around the turn of the millennium. While Praise You and Right Here, Right Now have become synonymous with other sections of your brain, however, The Rockafella Skank can only possibly take you back to low-res PS1 graphics of Paul Scholes and Robbie Fowler. What a time to be alive (if you were, of course.
Younger readers may not be aware just how ubiquitous Fatboy Slim was in 1998; Brighton’s most famous fan was everywhere, and never moreso than with The Rockafeller Skank. The repetitive big beat mash-up classic makes you want to go into a big field and dance around anyway… might as well be a computer-generated football pitch.
Watch The Rockafeller Skank on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
10. Idlewild - You Held the World in Your Arms (FIFA 2003)
This melodic, driving slice of indie goodness from the Edinburgh five-piece Idlewild soundtracked FIFA 2003.
Formed at the height of Britpop, Idlewild hit their creative peak in 2002 with their third album The Remote Part as the band embraced a more sweeping, epic sound that saw them grow in popularity and earn the attention of the FIFA soundtrack crew. This was a soundtrack that had two (two!) Kosheen songs – but this was the thing that never left your brain. A gorgeous piece of music.
Watch You Held the World in Your Arms on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
9. New Order - Blue Monday (FIFA 2005)
One of only a few pre-1990s tracks to have been included in the FIFA series, New Order’s masterpiece, Blue Monday, was an unlockable song for the FIFA 05 jukebox. The biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time, we’d comment on the fact that it took a decade for EA Sports to stick it in one of their games were it not for the fact that the song is completely, perfectly timeless.
You don’t need to have been part of the Madchester scene to appreciate just how epoch-making the song was at the time. It should be in the game every year.
Watch Blue Monday on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
8. The Streets - Fit But You Know It (FIFA 2005)
It’s 2004, and you’re compiling the shortlist for the new FIFA game. You’re looking for something fresh and cool and contemporary to stick in there. And what’s fresh, cool and contemporary more than The Streets in 2004?
Unashamedly crude and boorish, Fit But You Know It is – for better and worse – a time capsule of young lad culture in the mid-2000s, both reflecting and skewering the sexually-entitled drunken bravado of the time. The fact that the ranting protagonist is clearly a complete loser whose side you are really not meant to be on does get lost a bit in that incredibly singalong chorus, mind.
Watch Fit But You Know It on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
7. Kasabian - L.S.F. (FIFA 2004)
Yet more evidence that FIFA 04 is up there with the very best editions in terms of its music. Going through its playlist is like finding an old Now compilation in the loft and deciding that summer must have been the greatest era for music ever (Now 41 for those interested).
The perfect blend of forgettable lyrics, soothing basslines and dreamy choruses, L.S.F. could make you forget you had double science the next day as you mulled-over whether to start Mateja Kezman or Adrian Mutu in your next match.
Watch L.S.F. on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
6. Avicii - The Nights (FIFA 15)
One of the most beloved DJs, producers and hit-makers of the last 10 years – if not all time, really – Avicii had everything that EA love: big hooks, colourful sounds and a Scandinavian passport.
The Nights is one of the most unashamedly pop moments on any FIFA soundtrack ever, but it was a testament to the artist’s transcendent popularity. Culture was changing around this time, with the likes of Avicii being seen as the new sound of teenagers and 20-somethings.
EA have always been great at curating soundtracks that represent the audience. The Nights has sort of taken on an iconic status in the years since its release, and FIFA was well ahead of the curve on that one.
Watch The Nights on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
5. Caesers - Jerk It Out (FIFA 2004)
Released back when the band were still known as Caesars Palace, and now in Scandinavia as Twelve Caesars… but unless you’re a massive fan of Swedish pop rock, you probably don’t know them under any of those names. But you know this song, for definite, because it’s been used in every advert under the sun over the past 20 years.
But that doesn’t make it bad; it’s become the default selection for announcing the latest big sofa sale for a reason. That repetitive synth organ part that is so phenomenally catchy you’d actually sing along to it rather than using any of the actual lyrics, a privilege normally reserved for guitar solos.
Watch Jerk It Out on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
4. Gorillaz - 19-2000 (Soulchild remix) (FIFA 2002)
Allow us to set the scene: you’ve just returned from a Saturday afternoon wandering round Virgin Megastore with your old man. You’re sporting boot-cut jeans and a Gareth Gates hairstyle as you plop yourself down on a beanbag and switch on the PS2. Damon Albarn’s soothing tones flood your ears as you waste an entire evening on career mode; Ronaldinho running the show for your Blackburn Rovers side. Your mum’s preparing turkey dinosaurs downstairs for tea. Life is good.
For the avoidance of doubt, the obfuscatory title masks the fact that this is indeed the ‘get the cool shoeshine’ song, with its silly childish melody that sounds like it should be playing in the background of Hey Duggee or something. But that was the style at the time, with this track – in common with a lot of Gorillaz’s first album output – reflective of the final pre-9/11 summer: buoyant, bouncy and upbeat.
Watch 19-2000 (Soulchild remix) on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
3. Dreaming - Smallpools (FIFA 14)
Put this song and you're transported to a time when Liverpool had terrible kits made by Warrior. When Mesut Ozil was the big new star for Arsenal. When Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo were the two biggest things at Real Madrid.
Times may change but Dreaming is eternal. While plenty of the songs on this list have had decades, now, to stew and become synonymous with this series of games, this track has had just 10 years – and yet it's the definitive track for some people who weren't just brought up with this game. Smallpools never did much else. They didn't need to.
This is simply a FIFA song. It's not associated with much else outside the game. And that's the way we like it.
Watch Smallpools on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
2. Stone Roses - Fools Gold (FIFA 2004)
EA Sports’ early efforts focused on a lot more UK indie than they got to in later editions, and there’s no touchstone for that vibe more potent than a dose of the Stone Roses.
This is one of the coolest songs ever written, and a classic of the FIFA genre. You could find yourself humming along to any musical section of Fools Gold on a given day: the skiffle-drum beat, the plodding bassline, the mewing guitar that chimed in almost randomly or those lyrics you never bothered to learn.
You’d get to that one bit you sort of knew and that was always a treat: “Hummana, hummana, humanna, 15 dayyyys”. What Snoop Dogg smokes in song form. Maybe it’s this writer’s age and having grown up in the northwest in the 1990s, but there’s just something inherently football-y about Fools Gold. It’s honestly mad that it took until FIFA 2004 for it to be included.
Watch Fools Gold on YouTube / Listen on Spotify
1. Blur - Song 2 (FIFA 98)
Song 2 was pioneering for FIFA – the first proper loud, proper laddish anthem to be included in the game series, way back in FIFA 98. Yes, it’s the “woohoo song”.
The title track for a return to form for the FIFA series after the disappointing 1997 edition, Song 2 had come out just a few months prior to the game and so was not yet the obvious hacky choice for a fast-paced action sequence that it would later become.
Instead, a slightly abridged version of pounding two-minute hit, which remains a stadium staple to this day. The track was a big moment for London-based band Blur, too. Breaking from the britpop they’d defined, Song 2 was a fuzzy tribute to grunge gods Nirvana that saw the band’s popularity soar across the pond.
