EA Sports FC unleashed the bombshell on the world, and everybody’s been buzzing about it-not a new gameplay mechanic or an ultimate team card, if you please-setting a footballer actually INTO the soundtrack of the game. Thus, Moise Kean, the Italian striker who now plays at Fiorentina, was in a way the first pro footballer SEWN into the EA Sports FC soundtrack. Yep, you read it right. One actual dude whom you can really play in the game put together the soundtrack you jam to when playing games. What a wild thought!
In his promo picture, Kean gave the camera a stare full of seriousness and exaggerated artistry that no ESPN FC tweet has ever had before. The words “can’t be stopped” have been dubbed about Kean, but…well, let’s just say there were…umm…other opinions in the replies. But that’s for another story.
This is a really big deal for crossover moments in greater sports or music in gaming. The soundtrack of a name such as Stormzy or Drake-previously featured on the FIFA soundtracks, of course-would have been scheduled for. A present-day athlete on the soundtrack? An uncharted territory. It’s blurring the thin line that separates the virtual pitch and the recording studio in a way that we haven’t quite witnessed before.
But wait-was he really the first? Now, this is where things begin to get messy. Pretty soon, the floodgates of Twitter reactions were opened to reject the tweet with one (1) name: Kamakaze. More specifically, @KamakazeLC. Numerous users wasted not a second in railing against ESPN with comments like “Lazy post @KamakazeLC been there and done that!!! Do better @ESPNFC” and “He’s literally not super Matty Robinson has this title @KamakazeLC.” So, who his this guy? Matt Robinson, also known as Kamakaze, is a grime artist from the UK who was also a professional footballer. He played for the likes of Dagenham & Redbridge and had a track on the FIFA 20 soundtrack. So technically, there has been a pro footballer on the soundtrack, but mainly as a musician at the time. Kean, first and foremost, is known as a footballer; showing him on the soundtrack is another sort of precedent.
The reaction of gamers and football fans was an interesting mix of hype, confused chuckling, and outright sarcasm. One user simply stated, “Leao’s a bum.” Whatever. An actor came in with harsher critique than any stadium could’ve provided, “Someone should tell Kean zero shots in 3 Serie A games but bagging tunes on EA FC. Maybe less time in the studio, more time in front of goal.” It’s unfair but honest from the crowd.
Others were just curious about the music. “I will like to hear what it sounds like😁,” one said, possibly the most relatable comment of all. What could a Moise Kean song possibly sound like? Is it a hype anthem for scoring goals? A slow jam about being offside? We need deets! Another user inquired “@grok what is the name of his song?” and a Grok account responded that it’s called “BOMBAY,” released under his stage name KMB. So there you go.
All of this opened the door to a larger discussion about athletes having side hustles and passions beyond just sports. One advocate was quoted as saying, “Talented footballer and musician. He’s just destined to be in the limelight and relevant. This is a good thing.” It’s true: in a day when players are brands, this kind of crossover is logical. But it also opens them up to criticism if their performance dips, as that one tweet so brightly exhibited.
Then there came the very random and hilarious observation of one user: “He looks like one Nigeria popular musician,” which is just a galling, very particular kind of comment. Then another responded with, “Why he looking like Eze?” comparing him to Crystal Palace’s Eberechi Eze. The internet definitely wins in that one.
Amidst the chaos, one user debuted a very long, very intricately composed poetic paragraph that takes a deep look at the seismic sonnet of everything, slightly glancing into the evolution of Kean and what it means for the polymath’s defiant dialectic. Overwhelming, but oh, the passion!
So, what really is the story here? This is something new that EA Sports FC is doing: putting a current star on the soundtrack, mixing, as it were, sport culture with culture of the game. However, they, or at least ESPN, may have jumped the gun a little by calling him ‘first’ and unintentionally igniting a fever-fueled recall for the name Kamakaze from the fans. Otherwise, the classic case of internet history being written by those who were there first.
Whether or not this may set new precedent for the franchise still remains yet to be seen. Will Mbappé spit some sick raps for FC 27? Death metal for Haaland? Most likely no, but Kean has surely opened the doors wide. For now, it’s on the gamers themselves to get to actually experiencing ‘BOMBAY’ the minute the game is out. And, just maybe, it will be the one track that will make you forget his awful shot. That would be a dream.
