adidas is kicking off its FIFA World Cup 2026 campaign with a five-minute film that treats neighborhood football like myth.
Titled Backyard Legends, the new film brings together Timothée Chalamet, Lionel Messi, Bad Bunny, Lamine Yamal, Jude Bellingham, Trinity Rodman, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, and Alessandro Del Piero in a stylized story about free play, local lore, and the idea that legends can be made anywhere.
Created by LOLA USA and directed by Mark Molloy through Smuggler, the film continues adidas’ broader “You Got This” platform, which focuses on confidence, joy and self-belief in sport.
The story is led by Chalamet, who plays a football obsessive trying to assemble a team capable of taking down Clive, Ruthie, and Isaak, a local crew whose “win or go home” streak has supposedly survived generations of challengers. Their backyard legend is so strong that even 1990s icons like Zidane, Beckham, and Del Piero could not break it.
Along the way, the film brings in Messi, Yamal, Bellingham, and Rodman, with Bad Bunny also appearing in the campaign. Cameos from Ousmane Dembélé, Raphinha, Pedri, Florian Wirtz, and Santiago Gimenez add to the film’s sense of neighborhood mythology growing into something global. Watch below:
“I used to dream of playing with these guys — you know, I was playing at Pier 40 as a kid, thinking about Beckham’s free kicks, Del Piero’s goals, and Zidane’s volleys — doing my own versions,” Chalamet said. “I love this game, so it’s unbelievable to be doing this with adidas, captured with the best to ever do it. I’m a traditionalist, I don’t know soccer, I know football, and I can’t wait for this summer’s World Cup.”
Visually, Backyard Legends draws on 1990s street football culture, terrace style, analog technology, and era-defining haircuts, while using modern CGI and visual effects to heighten the story. The result is a film that feels nostalgic and contemporary at the same time, treating a local pitch, a parking lot, or a backyard as places where pressure disappears, and imagination takes over.
For adidas, the campaign is designed to connect the world’s biggest football stage with the informal spaces where many players first fall in love with the game. “Everyone remembers that feeling: playing for the joy of it, no pressure, no expectations,” said Florian Alt, vice president of global brand communications at adidas. “With Backyard Legends, we celebrate that freedom. It’s a reminder that self-belief and playfulness are the real winning mindset.”
Alt added that while elite athletes and national federations will face enormous pressure during the tournament, the campaign’s goal is to remind players at every level to disarm that pressure through freedom and belief.
“As our athletes and federations take to the biggest sporting stage this summer, we know that pressure is part of sport; we hear that directly from them,” Alt added. “While we encourage competitiveness, our ambition is to inspire everyone, to disarm that pressure through playing free and believing, ‘You Got This.’”
The campaign arrived last month as adidas prepares for a massive summer around the FIFA World Cup 2026. The brand is the tournament’s official match ball provider and kit supplier to 14 federations competing in the tournament.
Backyard Legends positions adidas not only on the biggest pitches in the world, but also on the smaller ones where football culture is born and passed down. Whether the game is played in a cage court, on a patch of grass, in a parking lot, or under the lights of a World Cup stadium, the campaign argues that the spirit of the game is the same.
“The game isn’t defined by the stage, the crowd, or the cameras,” Alt finished. “It’s defined by those who play free, where everyone can create a legend.”
CREDITS:
BRAND: adidas
- Manager: Lewis McLean
- VP Global Brand Communications: Florian Alt
- Communications Managers: Amanda Zanievicz, Brooke O’Brien, Marie-Claire Dresen
- Production Director: Bianca Medina Cundari
- Producers: Anna Smolovyk, Krista Gates, Jenna Pannaman, David Gutlay
AGENCY: LOLA USA
- Chief Creative Officer: JD Jurentkuff
- Executive Creative Director: Mike Bokman
- Group Creative Director: Jason Rappaport
- Art Directors: Alexa Aguilar, Catherine Soulé
- Designer: Callum Jackson
- Chief Strategy Officer: Elliott Bastien
- Strategy Director: Tash Loeb-Mills
- Business Lead: Erik Wade
- Brand Directors: Emma Chote, Britney Pesch
- Account Supervisor: Sarah Sabin
- Project Managers: Brittany Pierce, Chris Smith
AGENCY: Omnicom Production
- Head of Production: Jim Haight
- Executive Producer: Sara Ward
- Producers: Alexei Van Mourik, Alexis Galmin, Daysi Centeno
- Print Producers: Dena Moore, Jess Shay
AGENCY: The Midnight Club
PRODUCTION COMPANY: SMUGGLER
- Director: Mark Molloy
- Founder: Brian Carmody
- Chief Production Officer: Andrew Colon
- Executive Producers: Jaclyn Larson, Sue Yeon Ahn
- Line Producer: Ben Croker
- Director of Photography: Harry Wheeler
- 1st AD: John Lowe
PRODUCTION SERVICES: TWENTYFOUR SEVEN
- Photographers: Camila Falquez, Josh Greet
- Executive Producer: Jonas Hendrix
- Producer: Diana Hidalgo Román
- Production Manager: Bea Omist
- Coordinator: Bebi Masoliver
- Production Assistant: Pol Rodriguez
POST: Company 3 New York
Colorist: Tom Poole
POST / VFX: Untold Studios
- Creative Directors: Tom Raynor, Thiago Porto
- Post Production Supervisors: Bruno Fukumothi, Alex Kulikov, Jack Harris
- Executive Producer: Tomek Zietkiewicz
- Producer: Nicole Duncan
POST / VFX: ZERO
EDIT: WORK USA
- Editors: Rich Orrick, Rain Keene
- Edit Assistants: Augie Savoy, David Soto
- Producer: Drew Rissman
- Managing Director: Marlo Baird
MUSIC/SOUND: 750mp
- Sound Designers: Sam Ashwell, Jake Ashwell
- Sound Editor: Mike Bovill
- Head of Production: Rachel Saxon
- Executive Producer: Olivia Ray
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