It is a mark of where advertising budgets are these days that even Oscar-nominated directors can be persuaded to take a break from their day jobs to help flog sportswear. Alejandro González Iñárritu, previously responsible for Babel, Amores Perros and 21 Grams is unlikely to look back on Nike’s new Write the Future advert as one of the high points of his career, but he can at least be satisfied that it is among the better World Cup offerings to hit our screens so far. Not that the competition has been stiff, mind.

Assembling a small horde of the most recognisable players taking part in this summer’s tournament was always going to be the starting point for any such advert for Nike and on that front they certainly do not disappoint. Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Fabio Cannavaro and Franck Ribéry all appear, as do a number of celebrities who won’t be gracing South African pitches this summer, like Homer Simpson, Kobe Bryant and, erm, Ronaldinho. Always problematic when the sport refuses to co-operate with the product, eh lads?

The advert, a hefty three minutes long in its full version, steers us through a series of flashpoints in theoretical games in which the players show off their skills while fantasising about how glorious life will be if they triumph. It’s every bit as glossy as you would expect, but there is a nice degree of self-awareness that prevents it going down the same route as Carlsberg’s painfully overcooked offering.

Rather than glorying in the hyperbole, Nike have the good sense to poke fun at it – highlighting the absurdity of stock values rising or crashing dependent on a country’s footballing success and light-heartedly presenting a whole ward full of babies named after Wayne Rooney. Having wiled away more than one evening in front of Italian variety shows like Chiambretti Night in my lifetime, I would be lying if I said the image of Cannavaro being serenaded by a middle-aged man while surrounded by scantily-clad dancers didn’t draw a snort of approval.

But whilst there are neat touches the advert does fall some way short of Nike’s previous best efforts. It has neither the camp brilliance of Eric Cantona’s “au revoir” before firing a shot through a devil’s stomach, nor the simple lightheartedness of Brazil’s footballers enjoying a kickabout in an airport terminal. It doesn’t even have Cantona talking nonsense on a boat that’s about to sink.

Instead it feels a bit like something that has been done by the numbers, like everyone involved knew that what they were making was fine - unlikely to ruffle any feathers and certain, by dint of the players involved, to get plenty of coverage. The existence of articles like this one suggests they succeeded. And hey, at least it doesn’t have Terry Venables in it.

What they say: “Write the future.”

What it means: If you’ve got the budget.