'Avengers Endgame of sports culture': Can you spot the familiar faces in this Nike Fifa World Cup ad?

With the Fifa World Cup season coming soon, sports giant Nike has made moves to capture the heart of football fanatics.

In a six-minute advertisement titled Rip The Script posted on its YouTube channel on Friday (June 5), Nike got fans excited, garnering over 7.7 million views and more than 7,600 comments at the time of publishing.

Nike featured an impressive lineup of cast members. Familiar faces seen in the cinematic video include star footballers Cristiano Ronaldo, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe, which prompted fans to call it the "Avengers Endgame of sports culture".

There were also fun cameos made by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Lisa of Blackpink and Channing Tatum.

The clip is set inside a Hollywood studio and begins with Kylian Mbappe defying the orders of a director while filming an advertisement, followed by Spanish player Nico Williams kickstarting a scuffle for the football they are using for the shoot.

As they try to manoeuvre the ball away from each other, they intercept various shoots and are joined by multiple other footballers as they butt heads to gain control of the ball.

According to comments left under the YouTube video, a fan favourite moment is when Erling Haaland and Channing Tatum make exchanges while dressed alike.

The video also makes references to new World Cup skins in popular video game Fortnite with a motion-tracker scene, as well as a nod to 1995 film Batman Forever with a shot of Cristiano Ronaldo emerging unscathed from a burning building and Dutch footballer Virgil van Dijk yelling "Why won't you just die!".

In another scene, former Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic also declared "Zlatan will be back" — referencing Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic line from Terminator — before joining the hoard of footballers battling it out.

Notably, Cole 'Iceman' Palmer — who had controversially been excluded from the 26-man roster for England by manager Thomas Tuchel — also appeared in this clip, which caught fans by surprise.

According to a media release by Nike, the advertisement hopes to encourage young players everywhere to ditch the playbook and embrace creative, instinctive and joyful football.

Vice-President for brand management at Nike Helena Thorton said: "We know the magical moments in football happen when players trust their instincts."

"We didn't want to follow the traditional marketing playbook. We wanted to give them something worth talking about," she added, referring to the football community.

Creative Director Enrico Balleri stressed that the team was intentional in choosing every cast member in the advertisement.

"We knew Kim, for example, takes Saint to play football, so we created a whole 'football mom' persona for her," he said, adding that the roles created for the cast will continue to be developed in future videos released by Nike.

The full cast of the video includes Cristiano Ronaldo, Vini Jr., Kylian Mbappe, LeBron James, Lisa, Alexia Putellas, Cole Palmer, Virgil Van Dijk, Nico Williams, Clint419, Alphonso Davies, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Central Cee, Mateo, Bruno Fernandes, Didier Drogba, Travis Scott, Tyler Adams, Jamal Musiala, Young Miko, Raul Jimenez, Eric Cantona, Kerolin, Jorge Campos, Federico Valverde, Ronaldinho, Kate Scott, Estevao, Channing Tatum, Kim Kardashian, Saint West, Ted Lasso and Erling Haaland.

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