Two sports brands Adidas and Nike are competing fiercely in the football shoe and shirt business before the 2014 World Cup.

The World Cup opening on June 12 in Brazil will be the closest opportunity for Nike to realize what it has wanted for many years: to become the best-selling sports brand in the world.

Among the 10 most famous football players today, Nike has signed sponsorship with 6 people and Adidas has only 3. Puma, another sports brand from Germany, personally owns the remaining.

Ranked 2nd on the list is Argentina’s Lionel Messi, Adidas’ number one individual to counterbalance Nike.

According to Foxbusiness, Ronaldo helps Nike sell shirts even when he doesn’t wear them, just taking shirtless photos.

`Athletes like Ronaldo have such a special appeal that if you can bottle that and sell it, you don’t have to do anything else and still have tons of money,` Paul Smith, founder and CEO of the company

Adidas, which has long held the upper hand in the shoe, shirt and soccer market, now faces a challenge from Nike.

Adidas has 9 teams, including defending champion Spain, along with Argentina, Germany… expected to achieve 2.7 billion USD in revenue from soccer this year, higher than 2 billion USD of Nike.

`Football is like the backbone of our company,` Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer emphasized.

Meanwhile, Nike affirmed that it had surpassed Adidas in this field, including in the German market, its rival’s `home turf`.

Puma, which sponsors the only player in the top 10, Thiery Henry (France), also has plans to increase its brand at the 2014 World Cup. The company has convinced players such as Mario Balotelli and Gianluigi Buffon (with Italy).

`To be honest, when I first saw it, I thought the bosses at Puma were crazy. But when I knew they were serious, I felt excited because they dared to choose to be different, something everyone thinks about when talking about