A girl with nothing but a ball and a stubborn spark in her chest. That’s the heart of the new short film U2 and David Beckham dropped this week, timed to the 2026 World Cup’s final stretch.
The seven-minute video, called “Street of Dreams,” follows a young player named Nevaeh who faces homelessness and a bunch of other hard knocks. But she keeps chasing the game. It’s not a perfume commercial or a crypto ad. It actually lands somewhere between earnest and gritty.
Bono and Beckham, Together
The film stars newcomer Nevaeh Derricks in the lead role. Beckham shows up as a kind of mentor figure, telling her, “What’s holding you back? You’re just as good as them.” It’s a simple line but it fits the tone. The whole U2 band appears too — Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. — spraying graffiti in the background like they wandered in from a different scene entirely.
The song itself, also called “Street of Dreams,” dropped on July 7. It’s the first single from U2’s next studio album, which doesn’t have a title or release date yet. The band has had a busy year already. They put out two EPs earlier in 2026 — Days of Ash and Easter Lily — their first new material since 2017’s Songs of Experience. In 2023 they released Songs of Surrender, a collection of 40 re-recorded tracks.
How to Catch It During the World Cup
According to Variety, a 30-second cut of the short film will start airing on July 13 during World Cup broadcasts on FOX and Telemundo in North America. So if you’re watching the semifinals or the final, you’ll likely see it during commercial breaks.
Radha Ganti and Robert Lopuski directed the piece. Freuds and Somesuch handled production. And yeah, Bank of America backed the whole thing. Beckham is the bank’s global sports ambassador, which explains the connection.
What’s Next for U2
The band hasn’t announced when the full album drops or what it’ll be called. But dropping a World Cup–tied single with a Beckham cameo is a pretty loud signal that they’re back in a major way. The EPs earlier this year were already a surprise to fans who thought the band might be winding down after the 2023 residency in Las Vegas.
For now, the full short film is up on YouTube. Whether it makes you tear up or roll your eyes probably depends on how you feel about montages of kids kicking balls in slow motion. But the message is straightforward: keep playing, no matter what.
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