The 'curse' of Nike's World Cup ad

Almost every soccer player featured in Nike's sensational World Cup commercial has bombed out of the tournament. Could the glitzy spot be jinxed?

Nike's World Cup ad: Cursed?

Critics called it the "best ad ever," but many fans are rueing Nike's World Cup spot as the tournament enters its final stages. Nearly every soccer player prominently featured in the lavish "Write the Future" ad had an extremely poor World Cup campaign, leading to a great deal of only half-facetious speculation about whether the commercial had "cursed" its superstar protagonists. "Not one of its stars has played anything like the beautiful game," says Asher Klein in The New York Times, and many of them crashed out in the group stages — "does that spell out a curse?" Yes, it does, says Richard Whittall at Yahoo Sports. The ad "ripped through the chances of almost every one of its featured World Cup hopefuls," and even some of the "ad's non-footballing celebrities" have been affected. Here's a look at the carnage:

Didier Drogba

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