History, Crowds, and Cold Beer: Carlsberg at Anfield
Some stadiums carry a feeling that no amount of production design can replicate. Anfield is one of them. Walk in on a quiet day and you still feel it: the shape of the stands, the pitch, the silence where the noise used to be. For Carlsberg’s World Cup campaign, that atmosphere, and the fans who create that, wasn’t a backdrop. It was the whole point.
Tracks & Fields delivered music licensing and sound design for the campaign film, a piece built across two distinct musical chapters, each serving a different emotional purpose.
A Stadium Full of Memory
The film opens on a conversation. A security guard challenges a stranger, who turns out to be the “12th man,” the embodiment of the Liverpool faithful, the supporter whose voice and belief have always been considered part of the team. To prove who he is, he recalls two moments that define the club’s recent history: the treble-winning season of 2001 and the almost-unbelievable Champions League comeback of 2005, when Liverpool overturned a 3-0 deficit to lift the trophy in Istanbul. These aren’t just statistics. For anyone who was watching, they’re fixed points in time.
The 12th man was there for both. And the campaign’s argument is simple: every great Liverpool moment has the fans behind it. With World Cup squads being announced and Liverpool players heading off to represent their countries, those fans are needed again.
The film closes with an invitation for supporters to leave encouragement messages for Liverpool’s World Cup players, with the chance for those messages to reach Anfield. It turns the ad into something participatory. Not just a tribute to the past, but a way to be part of what comes next.
Two Halves, Two Sounds
This is where the music brief gets genuinely interesting. The first half of the film called for something cinematic. Building, restrained, with the kind of tension that lets the historical footage breathe. The music needed to honour those moments without overwhelming them. Scoring to memory is different from scoring to action. It requires space.
Then the film shifts. The second half moves into a rock and indie-rock track with the attitude and physicality of a proper football anthem. The kind of music you’d hear at full volume before a big match, direct, kinetic, built for a crowd. That contrast is what gives the film its shape. The first half is about looking back. The second is about showing up for what’s next.
Getting the two halves to connect, making the transition feel earned rather than abrupt, is where the sound design work becomes as important as the music choices themselves. Both elements need to serve the same story even when they’re pulling in different directions.
When Sound Holds the Story Together
Carlsberg’s campaign works because it takes football fandom seriously. It doesn’t treat supporters as an abstraction. It gives them a name, a voice, and a role in the story. The 12th man isn’t a metaphor here. He’s the protagonist, and the music has to match that weight.
For T&F, this project sits at the intersection of cultural history and sports storytelling, which is exactly where music supervision gets interesting. The brief isn’t just about finding the right track. It’s about understanding what the film is trying to say and making sure the sound says the same thing. When that alignment happens, the audience doesn’t notice the music. They just feel the moment more.
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