IF YOU THOUGHT something about the World Cup final’s first ever half-time show looked a bit odd, you weren’t the only one. 

There has been plenty of negative reaction to the production, not least of all from former England footballer Wayne Rooney, who called it “crap”. 

People posting about it on social media were bemused by the visual style, which some said looked like an advertisement or even something AI-generated. 

“There’s no AI in that,” Irish filmmaker Ruan Magan, who has directed a number of major stadium events including the GAA’s 1916 commemoration, told The Journal.

Some people have also been wondering if Madonna’s opening number began with a pre-recorded video, and speculating that some of it was computer-generated. 

Madonna appears on screen in the stadium at the beginning of the show Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Magan said it was definitely pre-recorded, and that to do otherwise would have been “practically ridiculous”.

He said big productions like the one in New York New Jersey Stadium can be “very tricky” without pre-recording some parts when there are so many moving pieces to put in place.

“The chaos of getting those mats out onto the pitch, that’s an incredibly difficult thing to do,” he said. 

On the aesthetics, he said the “very vivid” oranges and pinks were presumably meant to invoke a sense of a “childlike, joyous” atmosphere, but that this may have contributed to the impression people had that it was touched digitally. 

A general view of the half time show for the FIFA World Cup 2026 final Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

He was not as down on the half-time show as many others, though, even as he noted there were some moments that were “a bit sloppy, a bit clumsy”.

“I’m a sucker for this stuff,” he said. He praised the overall message he believes the director of the performance, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, was going for. 

He appreciated the final message being about love, as well as the fact that it was delivered by a diverse cast of mostly children, which he said was welcome given the current political climate in the United States and beyond. 

Justin Bieber finishes up his solo performance Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

That final chorus, as well as Shakira’s dancing with beaming children either side of her, were the highlights for him. 

He felt Justin Bieber’s performance, when he sang a fairly slow Christian song that ended with the lyrics “It’s a World Cup hallelujah”, deflated the show though. 

Ultimately, the mixture of so many different components and the slightly muddled message of the whole thing, he said, “left me scratching my head like everybody else”.