Baby elephants play soccer as World Cup fever reaches Nairobi Nursery

It looks like everyone has World Cup fever — even these elephants.

Ivory Coast footballer Yaya Touré recently kicked the ball around with a few of his massive pals at the The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's Nairobi Nursery.

They might not have all the rules down just yet — lying down on the field only works as a strategy when your opposition knocks you over, not just because it's nap time, for example — but their efforts are certainly adorable to watch.

Last fall, Manchester City midfielder Touré was appointed a goodwill ambassador by the United National Environment Programme, and joined a campaign against the poaching of elephants.

"Ivory Coast's national team is named 'The Elephants' after these magnificent creatures that are so full of power and grace, yet in my country alone there may be as few as 800 individuals left," Touré said at a press conference in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, last October.

"Poaching threatens the very existence of the African elephant and if we do not act now, we could be looking at a future in which this iconic species is wiped out."

In a World Cup qualifier between the Ivory Coast and Morocco last September, Touré and his fellow players held up signs to raise awareness of the killings of elephants.

According to BBC News, conservationists estimate that, in 2011 alone, at least 17,000 elephants were illegally killed.

"We are honoured that Mr. Touré has agreed to be a Goodwill Ambassador," said UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

"His personal commitment to an environmentally sustainable lifestyle and his global status as an internationally renowned sportsman makes him a particularly powerful African voice to speak and inspire action on the environmental challenges and the solutions to these challenges."