"Rip the Script"

8 June 2026

6 mins

Still the daddy.

Nike's World Cup ad is a bid to demonstrate that they are still the daddy when it comes to sports advertising, and - to a large extent - it succeeds. Our one reservation is that in the effort to create a film that is longer than Adidas's, this commercial is surprisingly baggy until it gets going, and it may even lose viewers whose attention wilts before it really hits its stride around a minute-and-a-half in.

Once it starts to let rip though, it becomes a thing of fun-filled beauty with cameo after cameo, and a number of Easter eggs referencing Nike ads of old.

It's quite the flex to have so many players who will be key players in the tournament when it starts next week, but England's Cole Palmer will feel sad to see himself in this ad and know it's as close as he got to being in the World Cup... Nike must have been as upset as he when they learned about that fateful call from Thomas Tuchel.

Director Dan Streit embraces the chaos which is more than can be said for the on-screen director who is, as always in a commercial, depicted as an utter knob. (To be fair, this isn't just the habit of advertising - directors portrayed in narrative dramas are almost always ridiculous caricatures as well.)

There's a neat punchline courtesy of Erling Haaland, a big figure in the world of football in every sense, but not someone likely to be holding the trophy aloft at the end of the tournament so it's sweet to give him the denouement in this.

As is often the way, Ronaldo provides some of the best moments, including one in which he doesn't actually appear - the exquisitely timed spinning office chair when he joins in the fun suggests a supernatural turn of speed. For a man who has defied physics in the past and is currently defying biology, it's a lovely touch.

And surely the best cameo and the most meaningful nod to the brand's legacy is provided by Eric Cantona, recreating an ad made in the aftermath of the kung fu kick that made him a legend, and a perfect encapsulation of the clever advertising that enabled Nike to present itself as a rebel brand even as it was the market leader.

USA

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