Atlas Triumphs with Rabona Kick and Son Heung-min Celebration... Astonishing Flexibility Amazes

Hyundai Motor Unveils Campaign Celebrating FIFA World Cup 2026
Atlas Takes on Football Challenge in New Series
Showcasing Advanced Moves and Proving Robotics Competitiveness
33 Million Views in Just Five Days After Release

Hyundai Motor Company has showcased its advanced robotics and football-linked campaign, demonstrating its physical AI technology on the global stage.

Scene of Atlas successfully performing Rabona kick in training video. Hyundai Motor Company

On May 29, Hyundai Motor Company announced that, as an official partner of the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026, it has released the “School of Football” campaign video. The video features Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot “Atlas” enhancing its robotics capabilities by learning football movements.

This campaign is part of Hyundai’s World Cup initiative “Next Starts Now,” which stems from the company’s vision of “Progress for Humanity.” It leverages football, a universally beloved sport, as an intuitive theme to entertainingly showcase the present and future potential of Hyundai’s robotics technology.

Atlas is practicing the Rabona kick. After successfully executing the Rabona kick, Atlas is performing Son Heung-min's 'Chalkak' celebration. Hyundai Motor YouTube.

The School of Football campaign comprises five videos, sequentially released on Hyundai’s official YouTube channel from May 25 to May 29. These include training footage featuring Atlas as the protagonist as well as scenes of Atlas practicing various football movements.

The launch film, which opens the campaign, unfolds with a story in which Atlas becomes interested in football by observing the diverse emotions, energy, and dynamic movements of players inherent in the sport.

The training videos vividly depict Atlas’s journey as it incrementally masters football basics—such as footwork, passing, and shooting—as well as more advanced moves like the Rabona kick, where the legs are crossed to shoot or cross the ball, steadily achieving more precise and dynamic motions along the way.

The final video, released on May 29, highlights Atlas, who has fully grasped the dynamic mechanisms of football through repeated training, successfully executing the high-level “Ghost Rabona Kick”—a technique that adds a deceptive feint to the traditional Rabona kick to outmaneuver defenders.

This campaign video was filmed without any computer graphics (CG) effects, capturing the next-generation electric Atlas developmental model—first unveiled at CES 2026—learning and performing a diverse array of movements autonomously, just like a real human.

For the humanoid robot to maintain balance and perform various football movements even in irregular postures, real-time feedback-based learning algorithms and advanced whole-body control technology are essential. Through this campaign, Hyundai Motor Company and Boston Dynamics demonstrated their integrated development capabilities in ▲ AI-based reinforcement learning, ▲ precise human motion imitation, and ▲ hardware control, thereby proving their next-generation robotics competitiveness.

Within just five days of release, these videos surpassed a cumulative 33 million views. On May 27, a video was also released through Hyundai Motor Company’s official YouTube channel, featuring brand ambassador Son Heung-min expressing his admiration for Atlas’s performance in the School of Football campaign.

School of Football campaign key visual. Hyundai Motor Company

On June 4, Hyundai Motor Company plans to release a making-of film featuring interviews with Boston Dynamics representatives who led Atlas’s training during the campaign’s preparation process.

Jisung Won, Executive Vice President and Head of Brand Marketing Division at Hyundai Motor Company, stated, “As part of Hyundai’s World Cup campaign, it is highly significant that we introduced the future (Next) of robotics to the world through football in an engaging and human-centered way. Based on the physical AI technology presented in this campaign, robotics will play a key role in expanding future possibilities. Moving forward, we plan to continuously create various brand experiences utilizing mobility and robotics.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.