Ed Sheeran visited England’s World Cup camp in Kansas City, played ‘Castle on the Hill’ for the squad and predicted an England-France final
England’s not-so-secret weapon at the 2026 World Cup carries a guitar instead of a boot bag. Ed Sheeran dropped in on the Three Lions’ tournament base in the Kansas City area this week, performing a private acoustic set for players and staff at the team hotel ahead of Saturday’s quarterfinal against Norway. In an Instagram video shared Thursday, July 9, the pop star greets the squad with hugs before delivering a stripped-down version of “Castle on the Hill,” his Billboard Hot 100 No. 6 hit, to a captive audience of internationals.
The visit continues a tradition that has become part of England’s tournament folklore. Sheeran explained in the video that captain Harry Kane first brought him into camp in 2021, that the two bonded, and that he has attended every camp since. He described the visits as a nice little tradition, and he did not leave without making a prediction. “Anyone can win, and I think it’ll be us,” Sheeran declared, forecasting that France would be the team waiting in the final.
The Stakes Behind the Singalong
The timing of the morale boost is no accident. England arrived at this quarterfinal off a historic 3-2 round-of-16 victory over Mexico at the Azteca, becoming the first team ever to beat El Tri in Mexico City at a World Cup. Thomas Tuchel’s side now faces its toughest test yet in Norway, whose superstar striker Erling Haaland has seven goals in the tournament, setting up a Golden Boot duel with Kane, who has six, with Jude Bellingham adding four of his own. If Sheeran’s bracket holds, the winner would be on a collision course with Kylian Mbappé’s France in the July 19 final.
Not everyone in the room appeared to be feeling the acoustic magic, it should be said. Clips of the performance went viral across social media, with fans gleefully zooming in on the less-than-enraptured expressions of players like John Stones and Morgan Rogers, and joking that the squad had suffered enough after a grueling knockout win. The ribbing only amplified the moment’s reach, turning a team-hotel singalong into one of the tournament’s most shared cultural crossovers.
Music and the World Cup’s Full-Court Press
Sheeran’s camp visits sit inside a tournament where music has never been more central to the product. The July 19 final at MetLife Stadium will feature the first halftime show in World Cup history, curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin and co-headlined by Justin Bieber, BTS, Madonna and Shakira. For a global music business increasingly treating the World Cup as its biggest stage of the decade, a superstar strumming for the presumptive favorites is the kind of organic content no sponsorship deal can script.
The singer’s football bona fides run deeper than fandom. Sheeran holds a minority stake in Ipswich Town, the Suffolk club near his hometown, and his relationship with the national team stretches back to that first 2021 performance, which he later told BBC’s Crouchy’s Year-Late Euros ranked among the great moments of his life. Five years on, the arrangement has matured into something like a ritual: England makes a deep run, and Sheeran shows up with a guitar.
Whether the tradition carries talismanic power gets tested Saturday against Norway. If England advances, expect the ginger good-luck charm to keep his touring schedule flexible through July 19. He has, after all, already called the final.
