{"id":2788,"date":"2026-07-04T15:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T15:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2788"},"modified":"2026-07-04T15:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T15:07:07","slug":"fifa-engineered-a-plan-to-get-the-usmnt-and-their-fans-singing-country-roads-and-it-worked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2788","title":{"rendered":"FIFA engineered a plan to get the USMNT and their fans singing \u2018Country Roads\u2019 \u2014\u00a0and it worked"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Even\u00a0coach Mauricio Pochettino,\u00a0who was born in Argentina and lives in Spain, got in on the act after Wednesday\u2019s 2-0 victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina, belting out the words to Denver\u2019s anthem as he hugged his players and staff members.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2786\">\u2018I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW!\u2019 Trump\u2019s pre-July 4 Friday news dump included pardons for 11 people including ex-Abramoff partner<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cCountry Roads\u201d cowriter Bill Danoff told The Associated Press that he\u2019s honored that the U.S. team has embraced the song, and that Denver, who\u00a0died in a plane crash in 1997, would have relished watching the most recent match.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cIt was such an exciting game \u2014 they were down a player with a red card, but they still won,\u201d said Danoff, who has started to become more of a soccer fan in recent weeks, partially due to the \u201cCountry Roads\u201d connection. \u201cI thought, \u2018Gee, I wish John was still here.\u2019 John got super excited about stuff like that, and it would have been fun to watch that game with him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The John Denver estate told the AP that it is \u201cthrilled\u201d by the song\u2019s latest revival at the World Cup, saying \u201cCountry Roads\u201d has endured because its message transcends geography, and that its \u201csimple, clear, and relatable\u201d lyrics make it perfect for a sing-along.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone knows what \u2018Take me home to the place I belong\u2019 is about,\u201d the estate said Thursday. \u201cIt\u2019s not limited to West Virginia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how a song inspired by a Maryland drive became a World Cup anthem.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h4>The song has its origins in Maryland, not West Virginia<\/h4>\n<p>Despite the lyrics\u2019 heartfelt\u00a0embrace of West Virginia,\u00a0Danoff has said the inspiration for the song came from a drive he and his then-wife, cowriter Taffy Nivert, took along Maryland\u2019s winding Clopper Road to attend a family reunion in Gaithersburg, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of the West Virginia border.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just started thinking, country roads, I started thinking of me growing up in western New England and going on all these small roads,\u201d Danoff told Washington\u2019s\u00a0WRC-TV\u00a0in 2020. \u201cIt didn\u2019t have anything to do with Maryland or anyplace.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>At the time, Danoff hadn\u2019t spent considerable time in West Virginia. He was familiar, though, with Appalachian music broadcast from Wheeling, West Virginia\u2019s famous WWVA radio station, which he listened to while growing up in Springfield, Massachusetts. Danoff said he was also inspired by the West Virginia-born actor Chris Sarandon, as well as the West Virginian members of a commune who would frequently attend his gigs.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Danoff said he and Nivert were planning to try to sell the song to Johnny Cash, but when they played an unfinished version one night in their apartment for their friend John Denver, the singer-songwriter convinced them to let him record it instead. The song, released in 1971, turned into Denver\u2019s biggest hit and has been a mainstay for decades.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know all of the ways that song must have touched people, but I\u2019m grateful that I have somehow been able to say something that has meaning for others,\u201d Denver wrote years later.<\/p>\n<h4>\u2018Country Roads\u2019 finds a new stage at the World Cup<\/h4>\n<p>According to\u00a0The Athletic, FIFA officials added \u201cCountry Roads\u201d to its postgame playlist options in hopes of creating a shared moment between the U.S. team and its supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2784\">Trump visits Mount Rushmore on 250th July 4th to declare communism a \u2018mortal threat to American liberty\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It made its debut at the end of the U.S.\u2019s second match as the players celebrated their 2-0 win over Australia in Seattle. The song was an immediate hit both inside the stadium and on social media, as fans embraced the scenes of U.S. players waving to fans as they sang the lyrics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou could feel the connection with the fans,\u201d midfielder Weston McKennie told reporters after the match.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>John Denver\u2019s song didn\u2019t get quite the same reception on June 25 at Los Angeles Stadium, as it came after a deflating, though insignificant, last-minute\u00a0U.S. loss to Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>But it came back in force Wednesday evening in Santa Clara, California,\u00a0as the U.S. defeated Bosnia-Herzegovina\u00a0to advance to the round of 16. Perhaps none were more enthusiastic than midfielders McKennie and Sebastian Berhalter, who swung their arms wildly as they wandered around the field while singing to the fans.<\/p>\n<p>During matches not involving the U.S. team, the song has frequently been played during hydration breaks and has also been met with roaring approval from fans who, moments previously, had been booing the start of each hydration break.<\/p>\n<h4>\u2018Country Roads\u2019 has long been a sports staple<\/h4>\n<p>It\u2019s hardly the first time that \u201cCountry Roads,\u201d has been\u00a0used by sports fans.\u00a0It has long been a mainstay at West Virginia University football games, where Mountaineer fans serenade the team after its home victories.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s even found a home in Europe, where fans have been singing it during the NFL\u2019s annual visit to Germany since the first game in Munich in 2022. Fans there were used to singing the song during Oktoberfest celebrations.<\/p>\n<p>And, in the English Premier League, Manchester United supporters years ago tweaked the words to sing about their own \u201chome\u201d \u2014 Old Trafford stadium.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h4>England\u2019s players have their own sing-along<\/h4>\n<p>While \u201cCountry Roads\u201d is the U.S.\u2019s unofficial anthem, the England national team during this tournament has similarly adopted\u00a0Oasis\u2019 \u201cWonderwall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Standing in a line, arms around each other\u2019s shoulders, the English players sang the 1995 hit after their 4-2 opening victory against Croatia, something that captain Harry Kane said was \u201cone of my favorite ever moments in an England shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2782\">Belgium got its tariffs cut. Then it sent Trump a diamond Superman ring<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The team has been repeating the post-match tradition after each match since.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A playlist decision meant to spark one shared moment turned into an Argentine coach hugging his staff and belting lyrics about a state he&#8217;s never lived in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-cup"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>FIFA engineered a plan to get the USMNT and their fans singing \u2018Country Roads\u2019 \u2014\u00a0and it worked - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2788\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FIFA engineered a plan to get the USMNT and their fans singing \u2018Country Roads\u2019 \u2014\u00a0and it worked - 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