"Kyller Instinct"

9 July 2025

60s

Dribble trouble.

Part one of Nike's 'Scary Good' campaign looks at post-traumatic stress disorder. OK, that’s a bit of a stretch—more like post-Kylian Mbappé stress disorder. Directed by Ian Pons Jewell, 'Kyller Instinct' (geddit?) takes place in a hospital with a difference: all the patients are goalkeepers and defenders left shell-shocked by the France and Real Madrid forward. Poor bastards never stood a chance.

To paraphrase Ennio Morricone Joan Baez, that agony is Jewell's triumph. The Frenchman haunts each player to the point of hallucinations, night sweats, and pained cries of "He's offside!" There's no cure, as far as we can tell—medical science needs to outpace him somehow.

The worst case is a bloke who sees dozens of tiny Mbappés swarm his bed, then relives the moment he was 'Kylled' in cold blood. "He can't get you in here," he's told... just as the porter's revealed to be Mbappé himself. The stuff of nightmares in the best possible way.

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