With more than four decades of experience on stage, Fher Olvera assures that Maná’s participation in the inauguration of the 2026 World Cup represents an “unprecedented moment” in the group’s career and hopes that this event followed by billions of people will serve to “promote peace” in the face of wars and international conflicts.
“The staging will be very Mexican, very pre-Hispanic (…) with choreographies and brutal things. I don’t think there has ever been an event like this in Mexico, in this form and of this magnitude inside the arena. It will be a delight for Mexicans and the whole world,” Olvera told EFE about this sporting event, which will be broadcast to more than 200 countries.
Mexico will be one of the venues for the 2026 World Cup along with the United States and Canada, and will host the opening match on June 11 at the Mexico City Stadium, where Maná will perform a two-minute song as part of the show organized by FIFA.
“We ‘manas’ are so excited about an event of this size in our country that it’s like a dream. We feel as if we were flying,” confesses the artist, who is part of the cast invited by FIFA, as well as Alejandro Fernández, J Balvin, Los Ángeles Azules and Belinda.
Fher Olvera, vocalist of Maná on a message of peace
As a fan of soccer and the Mexican National Team, this is not the first time Olvera has dedicated his music to the passion for football, as in 2018 he composed ‘El gladiador mexicano’, an anthem of support for Mexico during the World Cup held in Russia.
Almost ten years later, the singer believes that the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted by Mexico, the United States and Canada, represents an opportunity to “promote peace through sport”, because “lately there have been many wars”, such as in Palestine or the mistreatment of the Ukrainian people.
“It’s not all right, so soccer vindicates all these causes. Here there is union for the same idea, the same ideology of having fun and healing the heart and spirit,” he stresses.
In his opinion, art and sports are “the most beautiful thing that exists in the planetary culture”, since they integrate humanity beyond nationalities and allow society to move away from the idea that we are only in this world “to hit each other in the mother”.
Defending Spanish
In a context marked by polarization, the guitarist celebrates that music is that bridge to “vindicate more and more the Latino culture in the United States and in the world”, as Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny did in his last performance at Super Bowl LX, since “that is what we all need at the end of the day”.
Although he recognizes that the struggle to defend Latin roots and Spanish comes from long before, for that reason, groups like Maná never accepted to make songs in English or “fusions in ‘Spanglish'”.
“We never had a need to tap into that market. We have always been happy to transmit the stories of Latin and Latin America through our songs,” says Olvera, who recently collaborated with Dua Lipa to perform an all-Spanish version of ‘Oye Mi Amor’ (1992), a band classic and included on the album ‘Dua Lipa: Live from Mexico’.
Fher Olvera is counting down the days until the opening match of the World Cup between Mexico and South Africa, which hours before will also feature Lila Downs, Danny Ocean and Tyla.
“There’s nothing left,” he says, although he admits that his heart, 15 days before the meeting, beats as hard as if he were backstage, about to give the concert of his life, reported Agencia EFE.
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