A 7-year-old girl belted out the national anthem in front over 25,000 soccer fans at the LA StubHub Center, and her video went viral shortly after. She performed the epic rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” just before an LA Galaxy match against the Seattle Sounders.
Her name is Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja and she was the star of the show prior to the game. This comes as a result of her winning the first ever #GalaxySocial national anthem contest, according to the New York Post.
The Galaxy had announced, on September 19, that Tjandrawidjaja won the #GalaxySocial National Anthem contest and posted her reaction on Twitter. They posted “7-year-old @maleaemma just won the #GalaxySocial National Anthem contest and her reaction will hit you right in the feels.”
PRICELESS.
7-year-old @maleaemma just won the #GalaxySocial National Anthem contest and her reaction will hit you right in the feels pic.twitter.com/FnyFLSgQha
— LA Galaxy (@LAGalaxy) September 19, 2018
It wasn’t long until she was standing before thousands of fans for her performance on Sunday night.
Tjandrawidjaja was announced as “tiny but mighty” by the team’s public address announcer. That’s when the 3’9″ star performed her version of the national anthem — and her video went viral with almost 3 million views on Twitter and over 60,000 views on the Galaxy’s official YouTube channel.
Tjandrawidjaja told ABC News “I was thinking that I cannot do anything wrong because it’s a really special song to America.”
The LA Galaxy named her a “club legend” on their official Twitter account.
Club legend, @MaleaEmma. pic.twitter.com/MU4Yp6c6wa
— LA Galaxy (@LAGalaxy) September 24, 2018
Soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimović, the prolific goal-scoring Swedish player for the LA Galaxy, listed Tjandrawidjaja as the “MVP of the game!” in a Tweet to nearly 6 million followers.
MVP of the game! https://t.co/eZ2WdQsVN7
— Zlatan Ibrahimović (@Ibra_official) September 24, 2018