It looks like a compilation of some of the most exciting moments in France’s football history, but there’s a twist in this video — one that’s pushed this ad for the Women’s FIFA World Cup to mega-viral status.
The mind-bending ad, created by French creative agency Marcel for team sponsor Orange, has left female athletes in happy tears and misogynistic male football fans red in the face because of the goosebumps-inducing way it promoted France’s women’s football team.
The video starts off looking like an emotional compilation of men’s soccer highlights, with star footballers Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe pulling off incredible moves against a backdrop of swelling, triumphant music while commentators shout and cheer in awe.
But halfway through the video, something changes.
Through an erasure of VFX, it’s revealed that, actually, Griezmann and Mbappe aren’t the people behind these particular feats at all. Their faces were superimposed onto the bodies of France’s top footballers Delphine Cascarino and Sakina Karchaoui — and these breathtaking soccer moves were actually from *women’s* football games.
The video is a technical feat that took weeks of in-depth research into the French Football Federation’s archives to create, because its makers had to find the women’s technical moves, and find the same moves among the male players — and then trick us into thinking it was them all along.
The message of the ad is obvious: that women’s sport, contrary to what some misogynistic dipshits will say, is just as exciting and requires just as much skill as men’s sport.
A TikTok of the ad, which racked up more than a million likes in four days, has gone viral after a woman praised the French company for a truly incredible piece of marketing.
“It is the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” gushed TikTok user @jessiheni22, who posted the video.
“The way they are subtly calling out [claims that] ‘women’s soccer is just not as interesting, womens sport just isn’t as interesting’.”
The comments of the viral video are equally impressed.
“As a former female athlete, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Just crying right now,” one user wrote.
“Absolute CHILLS,” wrote another.
“Why am I CRYING,” one exclaimed.
Girl, me too!
Others joked that they suspected something was off when none of players fell to the ground in pain after accidentally being kicked.
“I was thinking its a bit weird nobody’s pretended they’re hurt with some of those falls,” a TikToker said cheekily.
“I was suspicious as soon as a player fell down and didn’t cause a scene lol,” said another.
The ad comes amidst news that this year’s prize money for the women’s FIFA World Cup is only $150 million — almost 300 per cent more than what they got in 2019, and yet still way less than what the men’s World Cup prize money was last year at $440 million.
The Matildas, our national treasures, are competing in the World Cup this year and have called for fairer conditions for female players, from being able to unionise, to equal pay, to more full time work opportunities.
It’s about time we saw women’s sport as the amazing display of skills that it is.
