“We (Nike and W+K) saw this campaign as an opportunity to make a statement and start a conversation about football in China,” says W+K Shanghai creative director Matt Skibiak.

Dong Hao, creative director at W+K Shanghai, asks, “Why can’t China be great? This film is clearly on the side of the athletes who believe it can be. Because if no one is willing to imagine going there in their heads, they’ll never get there in real life.”

But the commercial isn’t pure fantasy.

Nike recruited real teenage football players from the Nike Football League in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to star as the young players of today who are doing what others don’t dare to believe—taking China to the top of the football world.

It is a fun and ambitious future, and one a younger generation of Chinese players can believe in and are working to create.

The launch film clearly struck a chord, drawing 170 million views in only a few days after launching. The spot also ignited a heated debate about the future of Chinese football. While some still refuse to believe in such a future, and see it as little more than a daydream, many others have been inspired by this vision and applauded the boldness of its prediction.