logo
Cardi B Is 'Outside' This Summer While Offset Is Letting The 'Bodies' Hit The Floor

Cardi B Is 'Outside' This Summer While Offset Is Letting The 'Bodies' Hit The Floor

Yahoo21-06-2025

Cardi B and Offset are going head-to-head for the charts as they both dropped new singles on Friday (June 20), within hours of each other. The estranged married couple — who've spent the past year making headlines over their pending split — delivered what felt like musical rebuttals from both sides of the divorce.
Cardi came out swinging with 'Outside,' a long-teased release that lands as both a summer anthem and a bold declaration that she's moved on. It marks her first solo track of the year, delivered with her signature sound, razor-sharp bars, and lines that sound like clear shots at her ex.
Over a bass-heavy beat, she reclaims her singleness with bars about being 'cuffed up too long,' and even calls out a 'good-for-nothing, low-down dirty dog' — a jab many believe is aimed at Offset. She also throws a petty jab hinting at her once rumored-romance with NFL star Stefon Diggs, who she now officially dates. She raps: 'Favorite player from your favorite team, he in my DM.'
Offset, not one to let a moment pass quietly, released his own track 'Bodies' featuring JID just hours later.
The song, which samples rock group Drowning Pool's 'Bodies' is equally braggadocious as it showcases a lyrical version of Offset that fans haven't heard in years. He raps: 'I'm uppin' my rank 'cause I got ni**as spanked, ni**a, shh, death or dishonor/ I think these ni**as forgot where I came from, 'cause I got mansion and mansions with lake fronts.'
Social media lit up with hot takes and their side picked. One user wrote on X, 'Divorce really got Offset back in his bag. Cardi might've been the final boss he had to beat.' Others applauded Cardi, calling 'Outside' a career-reset that re-solidifies her place in the rap game post-breakup.
The pair, who filed for divorce again in August, have had a history of public breakups and reconciliations. But this time, things are seemingly final. Cardi has moved on to Diggs, as Set has been spotted with a few women here and there.
Speaking to Cardi's new relationship, Offset responded to a comment about the couple online that read, 'Offset punching the air,' with 'I'm happy for her !!'
Whether the singles were planned or coincidental, the dual release has fans tuned in. Take a listen to both tracks above.
More from VIBE.com
Cardi B Shares Luxurious First Photos Of Youngest Daughter, Blossom
Cardi B Speaks Out Against Pres. Trump's "Dictatorship Vibe" And Recent ICE Raids
Offset Reacts After Son And Cardi B's New Man, Stefon Diggs, Get Matching Braids

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

NYC, San Francisco and other US cities capping LGBTQ+ Pride month with a mix of party and protest
NYC, San Francisco and other US cities capping LGBTQ+ Pride month with a mix of party and protest

Washington Post

time40 minutes ago

  • Washington Post

NYC, San Francisco and other US cities capping LGBTQ+ Pride month with a mix of party and protest

NEW YORK — The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride reaches its rainbow-laden crescendo as New York and other major cities around the world host major parades and marches on Sunday. The festivities in Manhattan, home to the nation's oldest and largest Pride celebration, kick off with a march down Fifth Avenue featuring more than 700 participating groups and expected huge crowds.

Lionel Messi has made Miami America's new soccer capital. Will it last?
Lionel Messi has made Miami America's new soccer capital. Will it last?

New York Times

time41 minutes ago

  • New York Times

Lionel Messi has made Miami America's new soccer capital. Will it last?

In Scarface, Tony Montana is driving through Miami on a balmy summer night, top down, his car upholstered in understated tiger print. 'Me, I want what's coming to me,' he says to his compadre, Manny. 'And what's coming to you?' Montana gets asked. 'The world, Chico, and everything in it.' The Club World Cup has come to Miami this summer. The World Cup is next. The One Year Out celebration held at the city's Perez Art Museum on June 11 made that feel real. Advertisement 'First of all, we're more than qualified to host it, as we know,' the Latin Grammy winner and Miami native Marc Anthony said. 'We've hosted from Super Bowls to Formula 1.' Maybe the less said about last year's Copa America final, the better. At a conference in Coral Gables, Nicolo Zini, a business executive for the host committee, talked about 'real momentum' and the importance of the Club World Cup acting as a signpost that the World Cup is on its way. 'It is not a minor selling point,' Zini added. Miami did not have a game at the 1994 World Cup. 'The stadium wasn't ready. It went to Orlando.' Anticipation is building and has been ever since Inter Miami persuaded Lionel Messi to play in MLS. Away from the Art Deco curves and sandy pavements of Miami Beach, the boxiness of Wynwood has provided a canvas for more than the pastel colours that made this city famous through the outfits of Don Johnson in Miami Vice. It is home to the world's first graffiti museum. Pedestrians on the sidewalk find themselves in the shadow of cherry-pickers, not palm trees. The pop and shake of spray paint cans alternates with the rat-a-tat-tat of spluttering exhausts from Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Messi looms large in this neighbourhood. He smiles down from murals, as he does outside the Fiorito in Little Haiti, a steakhouse named after the Buenos Aires barrio where Diego Maradona grew up. It's a place where some of the area's 58,000 Argentinians come for blood sausage, empanadas and a vacio-cut so good you order it for main and dessert. Framed on the wall are a pair of red and yellow cards signed by Hector Elizondo, the Argentine referee who sent off Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup final. A Boca Juniors basketball game is on the TV. It is niche. Messi isn't everywhere in Miami. He plays and trains on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale, where autograph hunters all the way from Tucuman wait on the corner for his Maybach to turn into the Florida Blue Training Center. Advertisement This is a sprawling place and as such, you can ride around for hours without seeing Messi — apart from, every now and again, on towering freeway billboards where he competes for advertising space with injury lawyers, pharmaceuticals and air conditioning units. You don't need a car collection like the Miami Heat's legendary coach Pat Riley to get around the city, but you do need to drive. It is one big Scalextric track with rising, bending interchanges that look like albino anacondas surging out of the Everglades. F1's recent success here makes sense. The number of cars is perhaps why the city's most famous pieces of architecture are the stacked garages, like the Herzog & de Meuron one on 111 Lincoln Road. It is why the Hard Rock Stadium has 26,718 parking spaces. You reach it via Dan Marino Boulevard and Don Shula Drive, a pair of greats in Miami Dolphins lore. It is a reminder that the other football remains America's Game. Shula's passing was a big moment in Miami sports. On the way to the mixed zone at the Hard Rock, you pass the 72 Club, a hospitality experience named after the team Shula coached in 1972; the one and only team in NFL history to go an entire season undefeated. And yet, even as the Florida Panthers vied for and won the Stanley Cup during the group stage of FIFA president Gianni Infantino's new, expanded Club World Cup, fans turned out for the the competition in Miami. As much as half-empty stadiums were a focus of the coverage, the teal-coloured 65,000-seater Hard Rock averaged crowds of 60,000 over the first fortnight of the tournament. Some of that was down to the magnetic Messi effect. It was no coincidence that FIFA chose Inter Miami to raise the curtain on the Club World Cup against Al Ahly. The Hard Rock record, however, was for the Bayern Munich-Boca Juniors game. That, in no small part, spoke to the aforementioned Argentine diaspora — the irrationality of the Boca fans and their willingness to follow their team not only to Miami but, as their striker Miguel Merentiel said, 'to the moon, even'. Advertisement On the other, it highlighted, as Real Madrid–Al Hilal did too, that there is a market for football in Miami that isn't totally dependent on Messi. Madrid es Madrid, after all. The biggest club of all. And Americans love a winner. They love stars. And although predictable, it was striking nonetheless to see the pull Real Madrid has on Hispanic and Latino fans outside of Spain. 'Miami is a city with Latin American passion that loves soccer and has recently had the privilege of enjoying the magic of Messi and company,' Infantino said on the eve of the opening game. 'Not only that, it is also home to FIFA and Concacaf.' Joan Didion, the great writer and journalist, once observed that Miami isn't an American city but a 'tropical capital,' a 'Latin capital, a year or two away from a new government.' No matter where the World Cup is hosted, the government is — if not overthrown — then superseded, in a purely sporting sense, by FIFA. That won't happen in the U.S. but FIFA moved their legal and compliance division to Coral Gables because it makes logistical and geographic sense. After the Copa America, the Club World Cup and the men's World Cup, the next editions of the women's tournament will be held in Brazil and then the U.S.. It feels like FIFA and Messi have made Miami the football capital of America — something that Seattle, LA, Atlanta and St. Louis will no doubt dispute, but the growth potential here is remarkable. Over half of the population in Miami-Dade is foreign-born, and Spanish is the main language spoken at home and on the street. Historically, that population was drawn from nearby Cuba, which is only 90 miles off the coast. Jorge Mas Canosa, the father of David Beckham's co-owners at Inter Miami, Jorge and Jose, was one of many who exiled from Cuba after the rise of Fidel Castro. Advertisement The received wisdom assumed Cubans were interested in baseball, track and field, and boxing: not soccer. When shown reconnaissance photos of football pitches in Cienfuegos in 1970, the U.S.'s then-national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, demanded to see President Richard Nixon immediately. 'Those soccer fields could mean war, Bob,' he told an incredulous White House chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, who in turn asked: 'How come?'. 'Cubans play baseball,' Kissinger said. 'Russians play soccer.' And yet, Cuba sent a team to the 1938 World Cup, where they beat Romania in extra time and reached the quarter-finals. More recently, Miami has become a haven for Latin America's affluent and aspirational. It is a city that teems with people for whom soccer is the primary sport. Miami United tried to tap into it by signing Adriano. Miami FC, a joint venture between media rights empresario Riccardo Silva and Milan legend Paolo Maldini, had a go and still continue in the USL Championship. Only Inter Miami, however, were granted a license as an MLS expansion team. The hispanic and Latino demography of South Florida means support is fragmented. Think about it. Not everyone is Argentine. Not everyone is a Messi fan. Some 240k in the Miami-Dade and Broward counties are Colombian, and they made their presence felt at the Hard Rock for last summer's Copa America final, which Messi's Argentina won in extra time. The two nations met again in a World Cup qualifier that preceded the start of the Club World Cup. But the roster Inter Miami have built is representative of the city and South America. Benjamin Cremaschi is born and raised in Miami, the son of Argentine parents. Telasco Segovia is Venezuelan, Luis Suarez and Maximiliano Falcon are Uruguayan, Leo Afonso is Brazilian, David Martinez is Paraguayan and Allen Obando is Ecuadorean. Advertisement 'The best thing about Miami as you have seen or will see,' Inter Miami's president of business operations Xavi Asensi said at a conference held by the Argentine newspaper Ole, 'is that it is very near America.' Its proximity to more established football cultures and the conceptualisation of Inter Miami as a team not only of America but the Americas too is a benefit. Jorge Mas recently told ESPN he would like Inter Miami to one day compete in the Copa Libertadores. The brand, choice of name, colours and crest, and its association with Beckham has allowed Inter Miami to resonate far and wide. But if the pink Messi No 10 jersey is MLS's best seller and is seen in Hong Kong, Cape Town, Buenos Aires and London, it is, by Asensi's admission, because of Messi. His star power is not to be underestimated. Palermo pink would sell if Messi were in it. 'At Inter Miami,' Asensi said. 'Leo is bigger than the club.' Revenues have tripled since he joined. In April, Colombus Crew moved their regular-season home game against Inter Miami to the Cleveland Browns' stadium to meet demand for tickets. 'Wherever we go, it's like The Rolling Stones,' Asensi explained. Playing at the much bigger Hard Rock rather than Chase Stadium, their backyard in MLS, has not posed a challenge. Both group-stage games Inter Miami played there fetched crowds of 60k. It raises the question: why will Freedom Park, the new ground Inter Miami are building near Miami International Airport, have only a 25k capacity? It is, in fairness, a size in line with other MLS, soccer-first grounds in the U.S.. It perhaps also reflects a realism. Messi turned 38 earlier this week and while Jorge Mas wants him to retire at Inter Miami, that retirement is ever nearer. How long, if at all, will Messi carry on playing beyond next summer's World Cup? He has said, even during this Club World Cup, that these are his 'final games.' The end is coming. Who then will buy Inter Miami jerseys when they can't put Messi 10 on the back? Who will watch them when he is in the executive box rather than on the pitch? Advertisement The hope is that the Messi effect has a legacy. That the kids who have come to see him at Chase Stadium these past two and a half years become fans of the game, of Inter Miami in general and not just him. That the city, as Infantino desires, 'writes its name in gold letters' as major soccer destination. The world and everything in it has come to Miami. But, after Messi, after the World Cup, will it stay there? (Photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Petersen)

The complete history of Oasis and football
The complete history of Oasis and football

New York Times

timean hour ago

  • New York Times

The complete history of Oasis and football

The two most fabled decades in English popular culture are, almost without question, the 1960s and the 1990s. Those periods represented peaks for the nation's two major obsessions: music and football. The 1960s provided the world with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and England winning the World Cup. The 1990s offered Britpop, the launch of the Premier League, and England twice coming close to major tournament finals. Advertisement But there is a crucial difference. 1960s music and 1960s football were very disparate. Former Liverpool centre-forward Albert Stubbins featured on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, and there's a wonderful clip of The Kop singing She Loves You, but The Beatles weren't terribly interested in football. Mick Jagger routinely turns up at World Cups, but is not an avid club supporter and has always been more of a cricket man. The Who frontman Roger Daltrey might be a genuine Arsenal fan, but when he performed a song entitled Highbury Highs after the final match at the club's old ground in 2006, it felt incongruous. The 1990s were different. It's almost impossible to think of English football in that decade without a soundtrack of New Order for World Cup 1990 or the Lightning Seeds in 1996. Ahead of Euro 96, The Football Association released an album entitled The Beautiful Game on RCA Records, featuring the likes of Blur, Pulp and Supergrass. 'It's clear that two cultures of music and football have never been so close,' said Rick Blaskey, who had the grand job title of 'executive producer of music for Euro 96'. 'Consequently, as this country has such a rich heritage in both, it seemed only right to use music to celebrate England hosting the European Championship.' This was marketing speak, certainly. But the 1990s were the only time it would have made sense. The poster boys, of course, were Oasis. Liam and Noel Gallagher displayed their Manchester City fandom more visibly than any other rock band had ever considered. It helped that, throughout the 1990s, City's sponsor was a Japanese electronics manufacturer named Brother. The photographer who first pictured them in those shirts, Kevin Cummins of the NME, later had a more obscure footballing link for them. 'I was going to do a shot in an alleyway,' Cummins said a few years ago in an interview with FourFourTwo. 'But because we were up at the Oxford Street end of Soho, I knew Flitcroft Street was nearby, so I said to the band we'd do it there instead. It was a nod to City midfielder Garry Flitcroft, and they loved the idea.' Advertisement By virtue of their two leaders being siblings, Oasis generally avoided the standard question in music journalism: 'How did you guys meet?' But Noel was a latecomer to Oasis, and the story involving the others is of relevance. When Liam conducted an interview alongside bassist Paul 'Guigsy' McGuigan in Los Angeles in 1995, they were asked that usual question, to which Liam had no real answer. 'I can't remember how we met,' he said, as if he'd never really considered it. 'We live in the same area,' McGuigan clarified. 'We've known each other for about 12 years. We used to play football together. Soccer. Proper game.' 'Round ball,' Liam added. And McGuigan had originally met the band's original drummer, Tony McCarroll, because they played in the same football team together. The football came first. The music came after. The most overt use of football in Oasis' lyrics is in Round Are Way, the B-side to Wonderwall, and it's about playing, rather than watching. The game is kicking off in around the park It's 25-a-side and before it's dark There's gonna be a loser And you know the next goal wins Oasis' attitude — or at least their analogies — were often shaped by football. When Noel was explaining the ambition behind his lyrics in a 1995 interview, he turned to housing. 'My songs were not written for bedsits,' he said. 'Think penthouse, not bedsit. Think mansion, not semi-detached.' But Liam interjected with something different: 'Think AC Milan, not Tranmere Rovers'. In a 1996 interview with Select Magazine, a section about their favourite records is interrupted by the sudden mention of Robin Friday, the heavy-drinking, rebellious centre-forward of the 1970s. 'Friday is Oasis' icon,' the interviewer writes. 'Understand him, and you understand them.' The Oasis obsession with Friday was such that, during his time in the band, McGuigan co-wrote a book about the striker, entitled The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw: The Robin Friday Story. It's not a particularly substantive effort, mainly consisting of match reports from the time, and some personal testimonies from his family. You'd struggle to consider it a biography. Still, it's a sideline you wouldn't expect from other rock stars, and McGuigan was a genuine football fanatic — even more so than the Gallaghers. 'I don't really do anything,' McGuigan said in 1994 Rolling Stone magazine interview.' Watching football is my main hobby. Watching football, watching videos about football, reading about football and talking about football. That's pretty much all I care about.' Guigsy, like the Gallaghers, was a City fan. Advertisement But why were they City fans? 'You just get born with it, don't ya?' explained Noel in a Sky interview ahead of the 1999 Second Division play-off final. 'Know what I mean? All my cousins, they're all United fans. For some bizarre psychedelic reason, Dad decided to take us to Maine Road first. Cheers, Dad.' But a year later, in a column for the Guardian, Noel mentioned further details. 'The reason is basically a family one — my dad hated his brothers. They were all Irish people who came over here and decided to support United. My dad chose City instead, just to piss them off. No other reason than that. Liam and I should, by rights, have been United fans.' The NME editor of the time was supposedly reluctant to feature them in City shirts too often, declaring that because City were struggling at the wrong end of the Premier League, it didn't suit a band on the up. But beyond the obvious geographic connection, it's difficult to think of a more suitable footballing fit for Oasis than 1990s City. A band who were revelling in singing about, as on Bring It On Down, being 'the outcasts' and 'the underclass' became the country's most famous supporters of a struggling club, at precisely the moment their main rivals started to dominate. The catalyst for Oasis exploding into Britain's biggest band came when they were spotted by Creation Records boss Alan McGee at a Glasgow venue in May 1993, the same month United won their first Premier League title. Definitely Maybe was released the following summer, by which point United were top of the charts in a different sense. 'The Manchester United Football Squad', backed by Status Quo, recorded Come On You Reds as their 1994 FA Cup final song. It sold 200,000 copies and spent two weeks at No 1, having entered the charts on 24th April 1994 — one week after Oasis' debut single, Supersonic, which merely peaked at No 31. But that was just the start for Oasis. And slowly, the football references crept in. The video for their second single, Shakermaker, features a brief shot of a signed Manchester City football, and then a subsequent kickabout down the park. But, quite rightly, they have clearly sourced a second football before going down the park, leaving the signed City ball unblemished. And then there was the album cover. Definitely Maybe's sleeve featured a prominent picture of City legend Rodney Marsh, and perhaps more surprisingly, a smaller picture of United hero George Best. This was due to guitarist Bonehead's affection for United, and, according to photographer Michael Spencer Jones, 'Noel and Liam allowed it, because Best sort of transcended football.' 'The United fans love him because he was such a great player,' Noel later explained. 'But City fans love him because he lived to have a good time.' Advertisement Bonehead's request was supported by drummer McCarroll, also a United fan. But Bonehead himself, whose dad was a referee in amateur levels of the game, actually came from a City-supporting family. The first match he attempted was at Maine Road, and he admits he initially followed United as an act of rebellion. He later described being in a predominantly City-supporting band in the 1990s as 'Not too difficult — obviously they couldn't shout about much on a Saturday because they hardly ever won.' In recent years, incidentally, one of Bonehead's neighbours on the outskirts of Manchester has been United midfielder Casemiro. But a funny thing about Oasis — perhaps the most famous Mancunians of recent decades, and with songs based around ordinary life — is that their lyrics were entirely neutral geographically. Other Britpop bands mentioned, for example, that their protagonists studied at St Martin's College (Pulp, Common People) or got the train to Walton (Blur, Tracy Jacks), giving some kind of reference to proceedings. The Beatles sang about locations in Liverpool (Penny Lane being the most obvious) and the Arctic Monkeys' debut album mentioned various places around Sheffield: High Green, Hillsborough, Rotherham, Hunter's Bar. But there's barely a trace of any geography in Oasis' lyrics. Noel acknowledged this in a 1995 interview. 'We don't sing about London. We don't sing about Manchester. We don't sing about Sheffield. We don't sing about England. We're just singing about life.' Indeed, Noel actually turned down the offer of writing a club song for Manchester City in the mid-1990s. 'They wanted me to write their new theme tune, but even though I'm a fan, I'm not going to sweat blood over a song unless it's for myself,' he said. 'I'm a selfish bugger and, anyway, what I am going to get to rhyme with 'City'?' On the basis of their performances at the time, that one was an open goal. But refusing to actively sing about their team, combined with the fact their team were constantly struggling, made their fandom relatable. It helped, too, that Noel was always an insightful speaker about the game. Perhaps the peak was when City signed Georgi Kinkladze, a wonderfully talented Georgian playmaker who scored some wonderful goals in the Premier League but struggled to fit into Alan Ball's system. Noel described him as 'Either the most frightening thing I've ever seen or the best thing I've ever seen,' and said he would 'Either win us the European Cup or get us relegated to the fourth division.' That sounded extreme, yet it wasn't a million miles off: City were relegated to the third tier within two years, by which point the Georgian had been signed by Ajax, who had been European champions a couple of years earlier. Incidentally, City supporters' chant for Kinkladze was to the tune of Wonderwall, featuring, 'And all the runs that Kinky makes are blinding,' then 'And after all…we've got Alan Ball.' Advertisement These days, the Britpop era is boiled down to a battle between Oasis and Blur, which is essentially the 'Steven Gerrard v Frank Lampard' debate of the 1990s (Pulp would be Paul Scholes). And while there have always been rivalries between bands — the Beatles versus the Rolling Stones — there was something about Oasis vs Blur that felt particularly football-y. There was genuine needle. Digs in interviews felt like 'mind games'. The battle naturally played out in the charts: Blur's Country House famously beat Oasis' Roll With It to No 1 on the opening weekend of the 1995-96 season. Oasis would have loved it if they beat them. Loved it. But the battle also played out on the football pitch. At Mile End Stadium in 1996, a celebrity six-a-side tournament also featuring the likes of Jarvis Cocker and Robbie Williams pitched together the lead singers: Blur's Damon Albarn playing in a blue Chelsea beanie hat, and Liam inevitably in a light blue bucket hat. And therefore the defining photo of Britpop took place on a football pitch, with a goal in the background to confirm the surroundings. For the record, Albarn's side won 2-0. Noel didn't play, despite rating himself a good centre-back, because 'I don't like anyone in showbusiness'. But on the small evidence available, Liam seems a better player: there's footage of him scoring a good goal and then celebrating with Noel in a mid-1990s Goldie documentary. Around the same time, there had been a rumour in NME Magazine that Blur and Oasis were set to collaborate on the official England song for Euro 96. 'Over my f***ing dead body,' Gallagher said in an interview with Hot Press magazine, before referencing the FA chairman of the time. 'Sir Bert Millichip probably asked the office junior at the FA who the 'happening bands' were at the moment and thought, 'Right, that's another few quid in the coffers''. He also turned down the chance to sing the national anthem before England's semi-final with Germany at Euro 96. Oasis were clearly unlikely to take up the offer to sing God Save The Queen at Wembley, perhaps unless it was the Sex Pistols track. In terms of international football, Noel has generally expressed more affection for Ireland than England, because of his Irish heritage. When asked to choose between the two in an Irish Times interview in 2015, he replied instantly. 'Oh, Republic of Ireland; I don't consider myself to be English at all.' Accordingly, he has more than a soft spot for Celtic, describing the moment the PA system played Roll With It before an Old Firm match he attended in 2000 as 'the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life.' It helped that Celtic won 6-2. Noel's annoyance with England supporters was particularly pronounced when he condemned the supporters who had rioted at Lansdowne Road in 1995. 'Ireland could have gone 6-0 down at Wembley and their fans' reaction would've been, 'Ah, f*** it, we'll have a drink', but our lot had to riot because they have this ludicrously misplaced sense of patriotism,' he said. 'There's also the small matter of the England team being shite at the moment. They only beat Japan 2-1 and afterwards you had Jimmy Hill saying, 'You have to realise they're not the soft touch they used to be.' Bollocks. We were crap and the thing that pisses me off is that we won't, as a nation, admit our faults.' The violent aspect of football fandom always irritated him. When Liam was arrested after getting into a brawl on a ferry en route to Amsterdam for Oasis' debut European tour, Noel was furious. 'If you're proud of getting thrown off ferries, then why don't you go and support West Ham and get the f*** out of my band and go and be a football hooligan?', Noel said to him in a feisty 1994 NME interview that was actually released on CD. 'Because we're musicians, right? We're not football hooligans… getting thrown off a ferry isn't rock and roll. That's football hooliganism.' Noel was generally a far-sighted fan in the 1990s, expressing frustration that the English game remained behind the times. 'It's no wonder that all these kids go round smashing up town centres when all the England players go on about is getting stuck in, standing your ground, working hard and being aggressive,' he said once said. 'The French players like ballet, man! Their supporters cause no trouble because the idols they look up to are artists. Not f***ing 'Get stuck in lads, they don't like it up 'em, foreigners.' F*** off. They're playing a different sport.' Advertisement Noel has always had a particular appreciation for foreign playmakers with flair and craft. He backed Argentina to win World Cup 1998 because he was once mesmerised by Ariel Ortega. He became friends with Alessandro Del Piero, sitting next to the Italian's wife in Dortmund when he rounded off a glorious semi-final goal against Germany at World Cup 2006. He generally names his favourite City player as David Silva. 'For me, he personified the word 'sublime',' he said in 2024. 'He was just brilliant, he made us tick, he changed the game… Kevin De Bruyne is more breathtaking because his passes are just incredible. But Dave was a beautiful, beautiful footballer — we'd never seen the likes of him.' Clearly, City have had plenty of 'his' type of footballer in recent years, a far cry from the 1990s when he said the only City player he rated was right-back Ian Brightwell. Notably, both paid tribute to Diego Maradona when he died in 2020. 'A proper rock-and-roll footballer, no f***er will ever come near,' Liam wrote on Twitter along with a photo of them together. 'Met Maradona not once but twice and he was the real f***ing deal, scary but beautiful.' Noel's tweet was more straightforward. 'Buenos Aires '97. What a life. What a legend. He was under house arrest at the time.' Maradona shakes the hand of God ! — Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) April 30, 2012 Oasis' second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory, was released only a year after the debut, in October 1995. The recording sessions, in a house-cum-studio in Wales, can be accurately dated to May of that year, by the fact Oasis were heavily distracted by that season's title race. 'Football, man. United are f***ing losing the league, mad for it,' Liam is shown shouting into the microphone before a take for Champagne Supernova on the Supersonic documentary. He was more interested in watching Manchester United failing to defeat West Ham on the final day, therefore losing out to Kenny Dalglish's Blackburn. At full time, Liam stands in front of the television chanting Dalglish's name, before the other band members throw United fan Bonehead out of the house. The next clip is Liam having a kickabout in the garden. The peak of Oasis' touring days is often considered to be the legendary Knebworth shows in 1996. But a more personal highlight came earlier in the year, when Oasis played two dates at City's then-home, Maine Road. 'I loved standing on the terraces; it was like a gig when all the swaying started up,' Liam had previously said of his early visits. Noel had also seen the likes of Pink Floyd and Guns N' Roses at the ground. Advertisement The strange aspect about these gigs is that they happened on the penultimate weekend of the football season, in late April. Outdoor concerts in Britain at that time of year are extremely rare, because of the risk of adverse weather conditions, and the band were warned the gigs could be ruined by rain, although Noel pointed out that in Manchester, it rains all summer anyway. Committed United fan Bonehead refused to pose for the picture used on tickets for the event, while Liam wore a City player's sweatshirt on stage. 'I went backstage and there was some player's Umbro gear just sitting there and I thought, 'I'm having a bit of that', tried it on, f***ing freebie innit and, and I f***ing pinched it and f***ing wore it'. As simple as that. But this created a trend. Umbro launched an updated version earlier this year, to much acclaim from the football fashionistas. 'There are few moments and items in history that lay claim to being pivotal in the evolution of modern football culture,' read the Soccerbible website. 'But the Umbro drill top worn by Liam Gallagher on that April night at Maine Road would be one of them.' Oasis were always unashamed in their ambition and bold about conquering the world, but they were staggered by the experience of playing at their club's home stadium. 'To play at the ground of the football club you've supported all your life is, without doubt, the icing on the cake,' said Liam in 2017. 'It's downhill after that. Even Knebworth doesn't come close.' Noel said something similar a couple of years later. 'I remember sitting behind the stage at the Platt Lane end in a box and watching them dismantling the whole thing, ending up with just an empty stadium,' he said. 'I was taking the moment in, do you know what I mean? They were amazing gigs and it will never be repeated.' The following weekend at the ground, City hosted Liverpool on the final day of the season and drew 2-2, a result which confirmed their relegation. City had actually wasted time in the closing stages of the contest, wrongly believing a draw was enough to keep them up, which summed up their haplessness in this period. But, away from City, Oasis understood the importance of football to their fans. In September 1997, when they played in Newcastle, the gig clashed with Newcastle's famous 3-2 Champions League win over Barcelona. Liam wore a Newcastle shirt on stage — it probably helped that they were Manchester United's regular title challengers at this stage — and relayed the score to the crowd between songs. Oasis in the 21st century were a shadow of their 1990s peak — only a small handful of songs will feature on this summer's setlists. A rare highlight came with 2002's Stop Crying Your Heart Out, which soundtracked the BBC's montage of England's World Cup quarter-final defeat to Brazil. The single had only been released four days earlier; the Heathen Chemistry album the song was taken from was a fortnight away. In a game played on a weekday morning UK time, and watched in schools and offices around the country, England's tearful exit was the best possible promotion for the track. The montage ended with a shot of England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson; his death was announced the day before Oasis announced their reformation in late August last year. 22 years after this video, Oasis and Eriksson were on the front pages together. That World Cup montage stuck in people's minds and probably contributed to the song's surprise emergence in 2019 as a terrace chant, initially by Leeds fans repurposing the song as 'Stop crying Frank Lampard' before being sarcastically adopted by Lampard and his Derby side after they defeated Leeds in the playoffs. Advertisement Oasis' breakup in Paris in 2009 was both a long time coming, and also very sudden. Liam has repeatedly referenced a former City manager when ridiculing Noel's decision to walk away. 'He'd had enough of this 'lad' thing, and he wants to try something new — and it's not having a dig at him, but I just think he's sort of turned himself into a f***ing fake,' he said. 'I think he's done a Keegan.' In another interview, for the Supersonic documentary, Liam repeats the joke. 'I thought it was our kid just having his Kevin Keegan moment,' he says. It is particularly good analogy as it could conceivably refer to Keegan's departure from Newcastle, England, or indeed City. The Gallaghers' fandom of City has probably become more pronounced during the band's hiatus. Noel conducted the draw for the 2010-11 alongside Kasabian's Serge Pizzorno, a Leicester City supporter. Having joked beforehand that they'd like to draw out their own clubs against one another, they promptly did: Pizzorno drew Leicester as the home side, Gallagher drew City as the away side. There was a less than one per cent chance of them pulling that off. And while celebrity fans thankfully have a minor role to play in British television coverage of football, Noel has been the clearest exception. He played the role of Football Focus interviewer with Mario Balotelli in 2011 (at a time when no one in the media got an interview with the Italian) appeared on Match of the Day 2 as a pundit in 2015, then on Sky Sports as a pundit for a Manchester derby in 2017. Perhaps the highlight of that arrangement actually came, when, by way of promoting Gallagher's appearance, Paul Merson was given a charity challenge to slip in as many Oasis song titles into his Soccer Saturday punditry as possible, which he carried out remarkably smoothly. Noel was also given the honour of conducting Pep Guardiola's first interview as City manager. His prominence reached new heights last year when he was used as a co-commentator for TNT Sports' coverage of City's defeat in Lisbon to Sporting — which did feel a bit much — and he also had the ultimate honour of being interviewed in The Athletic. Meanwhile, there was a surprise starring role from Eric Cantona in Liam's video for his single Once, released in 2019. The video consists of little more than Cantona sitting around in a countryside mansion, drinking wine and lip-syncing to Liam's vocals. Cantona, according to Liam, refused any offer of payment, or assistance in travel or accommodation. Given the United-City connection, it took some time to get your head around; but then, just like George Best on the Definitely Maybe album cover, Cantona transcended both United and football. Throughout the period where they never spoke, the nearest thing to bringing Liam and Noel together was football. In 2016, both were insisting they hadn't been in touch since the breakup in 2009, with one near-miss. 'I think it was a football match in 2013 or 2014,' Liam said in a Radio X interview, when asked the last time they'd been together. 'It was a a City match. He was in one box and I was in another box, and I went into see him and I pinched his nipple and kissed him on the ear. I don't think we spoke.' Advertisement Whereas Liam used to watch City in a box rented by former midfielder Stephen Ireland, his fandom has waned slightly in recent years. 'I don't go and watch them anymore. I don't really like the Etihad,' he said to the NME in 2020. 'I don't dig it, it's like going and watching the f***ing opera.' But you can't escape Noel. He popped up in the City dressing room to sing Wonderwall with the players after the Premier League title victory in 2019. Four years later, City's players sang the same song in the dressing room after their European Cup final win over Inter (sadly without the lines about Kinkladze or Ball). City's next game against Inter also featured Oasis — their specially-designed Puma kit was a curious cream-blue number that was inspired by the cover art for Definitely Maybe. You'd probably have struggled to spot the resemblance had you not been told. But it completed a neat cycle: the album cover featured a player in a City shirt, and now a City shirt was inspired by the album cover. Noel also apparently had a role in designing the font for the back of City's shirts last season. He's still on good terms with Guardiola, and his refusal to join in the 'Poznan' a couple of years ago away at Fulham proved very popular and led to, it must be acknowledged, some excellent puns. 'He sees things they'll never see' worked particularly well. Oasis' initial demise coincided almost perfectly with City's rise. The band's last gig was on August 22nd 2009, the same day as City's first home match that season — the first full season of the current ownership, when they ultimately ended in fifth, at the time their best finish in the Premier League era. On that final tour, Oasis played three dates at Wembley Stadium. The previous time City had played at Wembley was a decade earlier, for the memorable win over Gillingham. That was in the third tier, and at the old stadium. (Even accounting for the seven-year rebuilding period, City wouldn't have been at Wembley in that time — they never played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.) Noel Gallagher speaking ahead of Manchester City's play-off final against Gillingham. — Sky Sports Retro (@SkySportsRetro) May 21, 2022 And now, between Oasis gigs — summer 2009 to summer 2025 — City have played at Wembley 31 times: 10 FA Cup semi-finals, six FA Cup finals, six League Cup finals, seven Community Shield finals and two Premier League matches (when Tottenham were between grounds). It's a far cry from 1995, when Gallagher said of City, 'Hopefully they'll win something while I'm alive. But I wouldn't put money on it.' This summer, Oasis will play seven dates at Wembley. They'll also play the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where City will hope to win the Club World Cup final this summer, and where the World Cup final will be played next year. The one disappointment is they won't be playing the Etihad, where they played in 2005, and where Liam played a solo gig in 2022, because it is undergoing renovations. But the tour will finish in South America, where Oasis will play at the legendary home grounds of River Plate and Sao Paulo. Advertisement Rock music is sometimes an awkward fit in a football ground, and Oasis haven't always excelled at these big stadium gigs. But over the last three decades, Oasis and football, perhaps more than any other band and any other sport, has always felt like a natural combination. (Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; James Gill – Danehouse; Avalon; Neil Mockford; Getty Images)

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store