The Show Tune: You'll Never Walk Alone
This is the king of all soccer anthems, a song of hope and solidarity that’s become the official motto of Liverpool FC. But its journey to the stadium was a weird one. The song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” wasn't written in a pub by rowdy fans; it’s from
the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. In the show, it’s sung to comfort a character after her husband’s death. Fast forward to 1963, when Liverpool band Gerry and the Pacemakers released a cover. Back then, the DJ at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium played the Top 10 hits before each game, and fans would sing along. When “You’ll Never Walk Alone” inevitably dropped out of the charts, the fans kept singing it anyway, demanding it be played. It became their song. Its message of perseverance took on a profound new meaning after the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, solidifying its place not just as a chant, but as the soul of the club.
The Rock Riff: Seven Nation Army
Even if you’ve never seen a soccer game, you know this one. That unforgettable bass riff—duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH-duh—is actually a guitar run through a pitch-shifting pedal by Jack White of The White Stripes. So how did a 2003 American garage rock song become a global sports anthem? It started by accident in a Milan bar. In October 2003, fans of the Belgian team Club Brugge were in town to play AC Milan. They heard the song, loved the riff, and started chanting it. They kept chanting it in the stadium, and when their team pulled off a surprise win, it became their lucky charm. Italian fans at the game heard it and liked it so much they adopted it themselves. It exploded in popularity when it became the unofficial anthem of Italy's triumphant 2006 World Cup campaign. In Italy, they don't even call it "Seven Nation Army"; they just call it the "Po Po Po Po Po Po" song.
The Underdog Cry: The Viking Clap
If you watched the Euro 2016 tournament, you saw it. The entire stadium falls silent. A lone drum beats. Thousands of hands go up. A deep, guttural “HÚH!” echoes as they clap in unison. The rhythm slowly, menacingly, builds to a frantic crescendo. This is the Viking Clap, and it made the Icelandic national team—from a country of just over 330,000 people—look and sound like the most intimidating force on Earth. But it’s not an ancient Viking war cry. The chant's origins are much more recent and borrowed. Fans from the Icelandic club Stjarnan first saw a version of it performed by supporters of the Scottish club Motherwell during a European match in 2014. They brought it back home, and the national team’s fans adopted it, turning it into a powerful symbol of their underdog spirit and incredible connection with their players.
The Rivalry Taunt: Dos a Cero
For American fans, this chant is personal. “Dos a Cero,” which is Spanish for “two to zero,” is aimed squarely at one team: the U.S. Men’s National Team’s biggest rival, Mexico. For decades, Mexico dominated the rivalry. But starting in the early 2000s, the tide began to turn, especially on American soil. The chant was born from a specific and recurring scoreline. It started with a 2-0 win for the USA over Mexico in a frigid World Cup qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, in 2001. The U.S. then famously beat Mexico by the same 2-0 score in the knockout round of the 2002 World Cup. The U.S. went on to beat Mexico 2-0 in Columbus in the next three consecutive qualifying cycles. The scoreline became a rallying cry and a delicious taunt, a way for U.S. fans to signal a new era in the rivalry, using their opponent's own language.
