For its new campaign ahead of the FIFA World Cup, adidas has assembled an impossible cast: Timothée Chalamet, Lionel Messi, Lamine Yamal, Jude Bellingham, Trinity Rodman, Bad Bunny. And then, straight from the Nineties, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham and Alessandro Del Piero. It’s called Backyard Legends — a five-minute short film that turns the mythology of neighborhood pitches into a commercial that feels like the trailer for a film we’d actually want to watch.

Available on adidas’ YouTube channel, the short film features a cast that blends sport, music and cinema in a deliberately disorienting way. Chalamet — an Oscar-nominated actor and lifelong football fan who grew up playing on the pitches of New York — is the narrative thread guiding the viewer into an impossible challenge: assembling a team capable of beating Clive, Ruthie and Isaak, a local trio whose unbeaten streak has outlasted every generation of challengers, including the great names of Nineties football.

The short film is built on a deliberately nostalgic aesthetic: a Nineties soundtrack, period street and terrace style, analogue technology, and hairstyles that look pulled straight from an archive. It’s all held together by CGI and visual effects that bring this retro sensibility into a contemporary production. Ousmane Dembélé, Raphinha, Pedri, Florian Wirtz and Santiago Gimenez also appear in brief cameos that amplify the mythology surrounding the unbeatable trio.

At the heart of the project is the message You Got This — the campaign line with which adidas approaches the World Cup: an invitation to play free, without pressure, to rediscover the joy of the game regardless of the stage. adidas arrives at this summer’s tournament as the official match ball provider and technical partner to 14 federations competing in the competition. Backyard Legends is the story it chooses to tell — not from the stadium, but from the backyard.