The Super Bowl has long reigned supreme as the biggest commercial event of the year. But advertisers around the world have stepped up their game for this year’s World Cup in Brazil with some spectacular – and heartwarming – TV spots.

The Last Game

Nike creates the “Space Jam” of soccer in this five-and-a-half-minute, digitally animated commercial that pits today’s soccer stars against a team of “perfect” clones who don’t make mistakes. The clones, dressed all in grey and sporting identical ridiculous bowl haircuts, crush the “original” players in their first match. Essentially, the flawless clones put superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Neymar Jr. and Zlatan Ibrahimovic out of work.

But the original soccer stars refuse to give up. They band together, rediscover their love of the game and beat the clones in a grudge match by being their funny, cocky, fun-loving selves. Ronaldo pauses to gloat on the goal line before scoring. Neymar snaps a selfie with one of the clones. Ibrahimovic blasts a few mid-air kicks, and the original players – with all their personality and flash – get back in the spotlight.

 

All-Time Greats

An Emirates ad for the World Cup united two generations of soccer superstars – and their fans - by putting today’s best player, Cristiano Ronaldo, on an airplane with the legendary Pele. Starstruck passengers show their generational differences as they praise one and ignore the other for a few entertaining in-flight moments.

 

Team Spain: Incognito

You don’t need to understand Spanish to appreciate the stunt Movistar pulled with the Spanish national team. Movistar disguised a number of Spain’s brightest soccer stars and sent them out to do everyday jobs like helping the elderly, working at a daycare and planting flowers.

Many of the undercover players are already superstars in Spain after winning the last World Cup in 2010, but they remained anonymous as they helped everyday Spanish citizens do the tough jobs soccer players never have to worry about.

Afterward, the players used video messages to unveil themselves to the people they worked with.

Movistar says in the video description that the stunt was meant to motivate players to work hard for another championship, even after winning it all in 2010.

 

The Game Before the Game

It’s tough not to feel something when you watch “The Game Before the Game,” a commercial from Beats by Dre. The five-minute video stars Brazil’s Neymar Jr. and his father, Neymar da Silva Sr., as the elder gives his son a pre-game talk before the World Cup.

“Run like it is the last day of your life,” Neymar’s father tells him in Portuguese. “Run like you are a crazy man chasing happiness.”

Neymar is wearing a pair of Beats headphones throughout the conversation (they have a built-in microphone), and we see him wearing those same headphones as he arrives at the game. The fans are rabid, the stage is huge, and when Neymar cranks up his volume, the music is pounding. The throbbing, powerful song “Jungle,” by X Ambassadors & Jamie N. Commons, plays as Neymar and other soccer stars get prepared for the big game. We see flashes of players training, fans getting psyched up, and even celebrities like LeBron James, Serena Williams, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj getting ready to watch the tournament.

Neymar’s father comes in again at the end, driving home the emotional impact.

“Put God’s army in front of you,” he says. “Wear God’s armour, from the helmet to the sandals. Go with God. God bless you.”

 

Nico, the one-legged soccer player

This Powerade commercial is only loosely tied to the World Cup (Powerade is a Brazil 2014 sponsor), but soccer-loving Nico Calabria’s story has already gone viral, with 1.8 million views on YouTube. “Nico’s Story” is a two-minute montage of videos from Nico’s youngest days to his teenage years, charting the life of a soccer fanatic who manages to play the sport despite his disability. The commercial shows us Nico’s struggles and triumphs as he grows up playing soccer. Whether on crutches or with the help of a prosthetic leg, we see little Nico grow up in the sport before our very eyes. As Powerade puts it, the boy shows what it means to “power through” his challenges.