Some of my best friends and I share a WhatsApp group called "All about the beautiful game." We share football clips, tactical arguments, the occasional transfer rumour, and every few years, when something worth sending arrives, World Cup ads. For years, the group had a quiet, unspoken consensus: nothing was hitting the way it used to. Not since the era when Nike sent footballers into a hellish showdown against the devil and its demons, or had the entire Brazil squad dancing samba with the ball in the air in their locker room. Ads that defined what football felt like to a generation.

That conversation changed the moment Nike dropped "Rip the Script."

After Adidas revealed their World Cup card "Backyard Legends," with Timothée Chalamet sitting with Messi and Bad Bunny on a street corner, the football world exhaled. That was it. Four years of waiting, and here were the biggest stars on the planet dressed like the rest of us, in a celebration of culture that felt alive. All the flashes were on them. But quietly, in the background, some of us were thinking: what is Nike going to come up with?

They came up with "Rip the Script," a five-minute cinematic short film disguised as an ad, where football players pretend to be actors and celebrities pretend to be footballers. Channing Tatum plays the stunt double of Erling Haaland, for example. Everything unfolds inside a chaotic Hollywood studio where scripts are invalid and pre-planned sequences collapse the moment the ball arrives.

 Adidas made a film that feels like a tribute to urban culture. "Backyard Legends" peaked on that street vibe and was built to represent football at a daily level, bringing superstars down to the ground.

 Nike made something entirely different. It gathered football stars and cultural figures around the ball at a relentless pace — everyone under the same roof, no matter if you're Cristiano Ronaldo or Kim Kardashian. Every frame brought a different face into the conversation, each carrying their own cultural authority. Travis Scott, LISA, and Young Miko as entry points into music and fashion. Kim Kardashian representing herself and the football mum she genuinely is. Ted Lasso, somehow, hanging out.

 Nike stopped targeting just football fans, they're aiming for everyone who is connected to the game in one way or another.

 If there's anything these multimillion-dollar campaigns are telling us, it's that the boundaries between advertising, football, and pop culture are fading. It was once rare to find Timothée Chalamet, Bad Bunny, Kim Kardashian, or Channing Tatum inside a football ad. Those spaces belonged to the people who played the game. Not anymore.

 Football players became global cultural icons long ago, as well. Whether football absorbed culture or culture absorbed football is a question worth sitting with.

 "Rip the Script" understood that. In pace, instinct, and storytelling, it carries the same spirit as Joga Bonito and the great Nike campaigns that came before it — the ones that didn't just sell boots but made you fall in love with the game all over again.

 The WhatsApp group is satisfied.