Where was the ultimate football place to be back in December 2001? The Galactico-era Bernabeu? Highbury under Invincible-building Arsene? Neil Warnock’s Bramall Lane? All good shouts, but the real dream ticket was a gloomy hangar on the outskirts of Rome.
Over three intense weeks, two dozen of the world’s greatest footballers arrived to make the most ambitious football commercial ever. Not all at the same time, admittedly, nor did some teams even meet, and at least one player didn’t kick a ball. But where else would you find Patrick Vieira and Ruud van Nistelrooy teaming up, a Rio Ferdinand/Fabio Cannavaro back two or Thierry Henry plotting with Francesco Totti, plus Eric Cantona atop a hot cage roof, loads of freakishly familiar freestylers and a grumpy film director?
“It was unprecedented, getting all these people from around the world,” reminisces Inti Carboni, an assistant director on that shoot, James Bond flick Spectre and now an acclaimed documentarian. “It was almost like a gamble from the production company, a Mission Impossible kind of thing.”
It certainly had an action movie set-up. Nike’s Secret Tournament – aka Scorpion KO, but often simply known as The Cage – was everywhere before the 2002 World Cup. The plot: 24 players are spirited away for a three-on-three, first-goal-wins contest in the hull of a ship, with a besuited Cantona presiding overhead. It even spawned a hit single. There were big
