How John Denver’s ‘Country Roads’ Became the Unofficial World Cup Anthem

John Denver’s 1971 folk-pop hit Take Me Home, Country Roads has become the unofficial anthem of the U.S. men's national team during its run at the home World Cup.

The song, long associated with West Virginia and college sports, has followed the Americans through some of the tournament’s biggest moments.

Its latest appearance came after the final whistle on Wednesday night, when the U.S. squad stayed on the field at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara as thousands of fans sang along.

The celebration capped a 2-0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Round of 32. Folarin Balogun opened the scoring in the 45th minute for his third goal of the tournament, and Malik Tillman added an 82nd-minute free kick to seal it. Balogun was sent off with a red card in the second half and will be suspended for the Americans’ next match. The win sends the U.S. to the Round of 16, where it will face Belgium on Monday in Seattle.

The Country Roads tradition, co-written by Denver with Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, took root on June 19 in Seattle. After the U.S. beat Australia 2.0, the first time since 1930 the Americans won their first two World Cup matches, nearly 67,000 fans at Lumen Field sang the song as players celebrated. During that match, the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network registered ground motion from the stadium tied to the crowd’s reaction to Alex Freeman’s goal.

The phenomenon continued after the latest match, the last World Cup game to be hosted in the Bay Area. Fox cameras captured the U.S. squad lingering on the pitch as the song echoed through the stadium. Coach Mauricio Pochettino, the Argentine manager who took over the U.S. team in 2024, joined in, while midfielder Weston McKennie playfully conducted the singing crowd.

The moment reached local leadership, too. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie was seen singing along in a video posted to X. “What a game by Team USA,” Lurie wrote. “This was the final match in the San Francisco Bay Area, and our region showed up in a big way.”

The song’s rise wasn't planned by the team. Amy Hopfinger, who spent 18 years at U.S. Soccer, before moving into a strategy role at FIFA, told The Athletic that the song "wasn't one of [the players'] original submissions."

She said she chose it herself after watching England fans passionately serenade their team with Oasis's Wonderwall on June 17, and began discussing with colleagues "what other games, and what other songs, might create those moments."

This behind-the-scenes account contradicts the official narrative initially put out by U.S. Soccer that claimed the team itself had submitted the folk-pop hit to FIFA, alongside Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer and Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline.

Fifty-five years after its initial release, the song, which is an ode to West Virginia’s serene landscape, entered YouTube’s U.S. Top Songs chart at No.100 on Wednesday, which the platform attributed to the song’s adoption “as a stadium sing-along fan anthem."

Thanks to this sudden wave of viral momentum, it seems Team USA finally has a definitive, homegrown anthem of its own.