The 2026 World Cup Has an Official Song and Fans Are Spending More Time Analyzing Its Piqué References Than the Fútbol

Three Ways You Can Unleash Your Inner Shakira Spirit on ‘Shakira Day’
Credit: Serenity, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Shakira released a preview of “Dai Dai,” her official song for the 2026 World Cup, on May 17th, and within hours the internet had stopped talking about the tournament entirely and started talking about a single clip buried inside the music video. The footage in question shows Cristiano Ronaldo scoring against Spain at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, a goal that has taken on an entirely different meaning for millions of fans who remember that Gerard Piqué was playing for Spain that day.

The video celebrates the history of the sport, moving through decades of iconic moments and name-dropping some of the biggest figures the game has ever produced, including Pelé, Maradona, Maldini, Romario, Ronaldo, El Pibe Valderrama, Iniesta, Beckham, Kaká, Messi, Mbappé and Salah. Piqué’s name appears nowhere in the song, a detail that fans were quick to notice and celebrate alongside the Ronaldo footage.

The Match, the Goal and Why It Matters

Spain and Portugal faced each other at the Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi on the opening day of the 2018 World Cup in one of the most memorable group stage matches in the tournament’s recent history. Ronaldo scored a hat trick that day, opening the scoring with a penalty in the third minute, adding a second after a goalkeeper error and sealing the draw with a free kick in the 88th minute that denied Spain the victory they had been holding for most of the match. The final score was 3-3, and Piqué started the game as part of the Spanish squad.

The clip Shakira’s team chose to include in the video preview is specifically from that match, a choice that, intentional or not, placed one of Piqué’s most painful professional memories inside her World Cup anthem. According to Pop Core, the goal featured in the preview came directly in the context of her former partner’s involvement in that 2018 World Cup campaign, a connection that fans latched onto immediately.

The Internet Had Thoughts and Did Not Hold Back

The reaction on social media was immediate and loud. A large portion of fans interpreted the clip as a deliberate reference to Shakira’s history with Piqué, reading the inclusion of that specific goal as another entry in what they have come to describe as her artistic habit of settling scores through her work.

Fans flooded comment sections describing the move as simultaneously petty and brilliant, praising what they saw as Shakira’s ability to deliver a pointed message through material that could plausibly be read as a straightforward football highlight. Many pointed out that of all the goals in World Cup history available to choose from, the selection of a Ronaldo strike against a Spanish team that included her former partner was too specific to be accidental. Others praised her for leaving Piqué’s name entirely out of the song while finding a way to remind everyone of his presence anyway.

There is, as of now, no official confirmation from Shakira or her team that the inclusion of the Ronaldo goal was a deliberate reference to her relationship with Piqué. The video draws from decades of football history and features dozens of iconic moments, and not every clip in a World Cup music video carries a personal subtext. A portion of fans pushed back on the speculation entirely, arguing that followers were searching for meaning in footage that may have been selected at random.

The split in interpretation has itself become part of the conversation, with the debate about whether Shakira intended the reference generating as much engagement online as the song itself. What is clear is that the combination of a World Cup anthem, a Ronaldo goal and the memory of Piqué in a Spanish jersey was always going to produce exactly this reaction, whether or not anyone planned it that way.

For Image credit or remove please email for immediate removal - info@belatina.com