When you press play on EA SPORTS FC 26 this year, you’re stepping into a soundtrack that spans continents and rewrites the rules of music discovery.

dj5rivers - Digital Feature - September 23, 2025
Toronto, ON, Canada

For decades, FIFA soundtracks (now FC) have been as iconic as the game itself, launching artists into global fame and shaping how entire generations discover music. What once felt like a bonus feature has become a cultural institution, introducing players to the anthems of their era before they hit radio or playlists. A football game becomes a global classroom for culture, where The Cure’s “And Nothing Is Forever (Remix)” can flow seamlessly into a fresh Afrobeat track, bridging generations, genres, and geographies.

Football’s Global Language, Now in Sound

Football (or soccer, as you may know it) has always been a world game. From the streets of São Paulo to the pitches of Nairobi, from London estates to Indian gullies and pinds, the sport moves hearts across borders. The FC 26' Soundtrack  lineup reflects that same reach: 109 tracks from every corner of the globe, Latin trap, UK garage, Afrobeat, Punjabi folk fusion, indie rock, and beyond.

For the first time in FC history, you can hear a Brazilian funk anthem, a Punjabi diaspora banger, a Bengali cultural marker and a British indie classic, back-to-back, without skipping a beat. It’s recognition that today’s youth culture is not defined by borders, but by global playlists that mix languages, cadences, rhythms, and melodies.

Take Mumzy Stranger & Muza’s “Ki Kori,” weaving Bengali melodies into global pop. Or Raf Saperra & Ikky’s “Ni Billo,”pulling Punjabi folk into the future with UK bass-lines and Canadian finesse. These tracks sit shoulder-to-shoulder with Ed Sheeran, Fred again.., and PinkPantheress. For young listeners across the globe, hearing their sounds alongside global superstars is recognition, a message that “your culture belongs here too”. Imagine a teenager in Argentina hearing Punjabi folk for the first time, or a kid in Delhi discovering Afro-futurist R&B from Sudan Archives. 

Sync makes that possible. 

Sync stands as one of the most powerful ways for an artist to cut through the noise of oversaturated platforms, algorithms, and endless playlists. It’s this unique ability to fuse discovery with community makes the FC soundtrack more than background music. A single placement can turn a local anthem into a global phenomenon, creating not just streams, but shared memories and collective identity. 

In an era where streaming services overflow with roughly 100,000 new songs every day, sync is the difference between being skipped and being remembered.

On platforms ruled by algorithms and passive scrolling, a track can disappear as quickly as it appears. However a song placed in FC 26' is experienced in moments of adrenaline, triumph, and immersion. An emotional imprint that results in fans Shazam it mid-match, stream it after, and weave it into the soundtrack of their own lives. This is why sync has been so transformative. 

Past FIFA placements have shinned a spotlight on artists and launched their careers. Kasabian broke internationally after “Club Foot” appeared in FIFA 2004. MGMT’s “Kids” (FIFA 09) helped solidify their global rise. And in perhaps the clearest example, Lorde’s “Royals” gained massive early momentum from its FIFA 14 sync, helping accelerate her path from New Zealand newcomer to global pop icon. More recently, South African artist Kamo Mphela saw her amapiano track “Nkulunkulu” (FIFA 22) break out to worldwide audiences, turning her into a global ambassador for one of Africa’s fastest-rising genres. Similarly, Punjabi-British artist Raf-Saperra’s placement in EA SPORTS FC 24 gave Punjabi folk and UK drill fusion one of its first major international sync spotlights, introducing diasporic South Asian sounds to millions of players worldwide.

The numbers back it up: songs featured on FIFA soundtracks have historically seen streaming spikes of 300–400% within weeks of release, with some tracks topping 1 million Shazams in a single month after launch. In today’s fragmented music economy, sync is organic exposure, bot-free promotion, a way to connect with millions of listeners at once in a context no playlist can replicate. It’s one of the few truly global stages left, and FC 26 proves just how powerful a sync stage can be.

Final Whistle

For over two decades, FIFA (now FC) has proven that one well-placed track can rewrite an artist’s career trajectory, from the Britpop surge of the early 2000s, to the grime and reggaeton breakthroughs of the 2010s, to the amapiano and Punjabi sounds making waves today, each edition has acted like a time capsule of what the world is listening to and what it will soon embrace.

What makes FC 26 stand out is how decisively it frames diasporic and borderless music as the sound of the future. This soundtrack reflects globalization and enacts it, proving that a kid in Toronto or Delhi can discover a track from Lagos or Medellín while playing the same game as someone in Tokyo or Berlin. Sync has always been about placement, but in the interactive space of gaming, it has become about immersion, identity, and connection.
In that sense, FC 26 is a playlist, a manifesto: that borders are dissolving, diasporic voices are central, and the next global hit could come from anywhere.

Brought to you by Pineapple Express Media, a publisher for world music.