The World Cup finally got its own Super Bowl style halftime show, and reviews are genuinely split

[Quasar Vulture]

FIFA staged its first ever World Cup final halftime show on Sunday, curated by Coldplay's Chris Martin, stretching the usual 15 minute break to a full 27 minutes to accommodate an 11 minute performance plus staging setup and teardown. The lineup was genuinely enormous for a single halftime slot, Madonna, Justin Bieber, Shakira, K-pop group BTS, Nigerian artist Burna Boy, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, the Muppets, and even a cameo from Jason Sudeikis reprising his Ted Lasso character to introduce Bieber

The show leaned heavily on callbacks to moments from earlier in the tournament, orchestral musicians recreated the viral Norwegian row celebration, and Congolese superfan Michel Nkuka Mboladinga, known for performing as a living statue honoring assassinated independence leader Patrice Lumumba, made an appearance too. It closed with a group of children gathered at midfield joined by several performers for a song about love

Reaction was genuinely mixed rather than uniformly positive. Some outlets favorably compared it to the most recent Super Bowl halftime show, arguing this performance had more energy and was easier to actually follow along with. Others were far more critical, one review argued the sheer number of A-list names crammed into such a short slot became the show's biggest weakness, so much happened on screen at once that it was described as giving viewers whiplash trying to follow it all, ultimately landing as too scattered and safe to feel genuinely memorable despite the star power on display

On the specific concerns your question raises, there wasn't any reported injury risk tied to the show itself, the pitch was covered with a tarp during the performance and uncovered again before play resumed, a standard precaution rather than something that caused any documented problem. The bigger practical gripe came from how long players were left waiting, Messi, Lamine Yamal and the rest of both squads sat around for the better part of half an hour between playing actions, a real departure from a normal 15 minute break and something that could plausibly affect a team's rhythm coming out for the second half, even if neither side pointed to it directly as a factor in how the match actually played out

The World Cup's First Halftime Show Did Too Much and Meant Too Littletime.com