Best Soccer Chants: The Terrace Songs the Whole World Now Sings

The best soccer chants are almost never written for soccer. They are borrowed from a disco record, a rock riff or a Navy prep school, and one crowd passes them to the next until nobody remembers where they started.

Here are the ones that crossed borders, with the words fans sing and the tune each one borrowed.

I Believe That We Will Win (USA)

The chant of US soccer, and the one American fans know best.

The Lyrics:

"I, I believe, I believe that, I believe that we, I believe that we will win! I believe that we will win!"

It is not a soccer invention. Jay Rodriguez, a student at the Naval Academy Prep School in Annapolis, came up with it in 1998 as a platoon chant. It reached the Army-Navy football game in 1999.

The American Outlaws first used it at a US soccer game in Kansas City in 2011. It went national during the 2014 World Cup and has been the USMNT supporters' call ever since.

It needs no tune. It starts slow and quiet and builds, one word at a time.

Seven Nation Army (Everywhere)

The most-sung chant in world soccer has no words at all.

Crowds sing the riff of Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes as a wordless "oh" and bounce to it. That is the whole chant.

It started with Club Brugge fans. Before a Champions League game at AC Milan in October 2003, they heard the song in a bar in Milan and started chanting the riff. Brugge won 1-0 at San Siro and took it home.

Roma fans picked it up at Brugge in 2006, and it followed Italy through their 2006 World Cup win. Italian fans sang "Campioni del mondo" (champions of the world) to it that summer.

Allez Allez Allez (Liverpool)

The Liverpool version opens like this.

The Lyrics:

"We've conquered all of Europe, we're never gonna stop."

The refrain is the title, "Allez, allez, allez," repeated.

It is sung to L'estate sta finendo, a 1985 Italian disco single by Righeira. The tune traveled through Italian terraces to Porto and Germany before Liverpool fans heard Porto supporters sing it.

Liverpool fans wrote their own words in December 2017 and first sang it at Porto in February 2018, in the Champions League round of 16. Video of that away end went viral, and it became the anthem of the club's run to the final that season.

The Viking Thunderclap (Iceland)

A drum, a clap over the head, and one shout.

The Lyrics:

"Huh!"

The gap between claps shortens each time until the whole stand is clapping together.

Iceland's fans made it famous at Euro 2016, where the team reached the quarterfinals. The Icelanders had learned it from Motherwell fans in Scotland, who performed it against the Icelandic club Stjarnan in a Europa League qualifier in July 2014.

Muchachos (Argentina)

The song of Argentina's 2022 World Cup win.

Schoolteacher Fernando Romero wrote new words, about Maradona and Messi, to "Muchachos, esta noche me emborracho," a 2003 rock song by La Mosca Tse-Tse. His title translates as "Boys, now we have hope again."

La Mosca re-recorded it with Romero's words before the tournament, so the full lyrics now belong to a commercial record, and this post does not reproduce them. It was sung in the stands at Lusail and in the Argentina dressing room.

Olé, Olé, Olé (Everywhere)

The simplest chant there is, and the one every stadium knows.

The Lyrics:

"Olé, olé, olé, olé! Olé, olé!"

We explain where it comes from in What Does Ole Ole Ole Mean?.

The Poznan (Manchester City)

Less a chant than a move: fans turn their backs to the pitch, link arms and jump up and down together while singing.

It is named after Lech Poznan. Their fans did it in the away end at Manchester City in a Europa League group game on October 21, 2010. City supporters took it up a few weeks later and named it after the club they learned it from.

Player Chants

The best player chants are short, fit on one breath, and borrow a tune the whole stand already knows.

• Bukayo Saka, to Voulez-Vous by ABBA: Bukayo Saka Chant
• Declan Rice: Declan Rice Chant
• Erling Haaland: Erling Haaland Chant
• Harry Kane: Harry Kane Chant
• Viktor Gyokeres: Viktor Gyokeres Chant

Club Anthems

Some clubs sing a commercial song as their anthem rather than a terrace chant.

Manchester City sing Blue Moon, a 1934 Rodgers and Hart standard. We tell that story in Blue Moon: Why Man City Fans Sing a 1934 Show Tune. Real Madrid's is covered in What Does Hala Madrid Mean?.

The FootyTracks Songs

FootyTracks writes original songs for fans, not covers of chants.

The World Cup 2026 Anthem, Messi's Argentina song, Saka's Starboy, Barcola's Liverpool song and Bernardo Silva's City farewell are in the Listen block above, and the Football Anthems collection holds the rest.