Football ads. Is there any higher art?
Sky Sports outdid themselves with this week’s new ad for the Premier League, starring a time-travelling Thierry Henry.
We think it was just good enough to break into out all time top-ten football ads. Here are the other nine.
9) Are You Ready For Love?
A good ad leaves you asking questions. Questions like: how many people declined Sky Sports’ offer to be in their ad before they decided to contact Elton John? Who told him to wear that Ecko tracksuit? Did he bring it from home or did he buy it especially for the ad? Watch this classic ad from 2003 as many times as you like, you won’t be any closer to an answer.
8) The Honey Monster and Kevin Keegan
Brendan Rodgers saw this ad and immediately offered Kevin Keegan £30 million for the Honey Monster.
7) Ye olde Pepsi adde
This list deserved at least one video that features a bendy Roberto Carlos free-kick. We went with this one because of Pepsi’s sheer commitment to dressing up footballers as warriors from a very unclear period in history, fighting against the evil city guards who have stolen all the Pepsi. Classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYWAq0AbU-E
6) Papa Loves Mambo
There is nothing I can say about this ad that you cannot put better by singing the Papa Loves Mambo song to yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGi-bwN-xoM
5) #pirlothewizard
There are a lot of videos in Jeep’s #pirlothewizard series but we chose this one because it features Pirlo doing the coolest thing ever done with a football while wearing a belt.
4) Gareth Southgate in Pizza Hut
There are two things to take from this ad: Stuart Pearce actually has great comedic timing, and that this ad probably wasn’t the first time somebody has asked Gareth Southgate to wear a paper bag over his face.
3) Not great options, are they?
Jack Charlton, Mick McCarthy and Johnny Giles could not be happier to be around those pretty ladies.
2) Carlsberg don’t do dreams…
If Carlsberg were to make the same ad today they’d have to make a few adjustments. Even in our wildest dreams the best we could hope for is Jeff Hendrick scuffing in a last-minute equaliser against Poland, sealing us a third place finish in qualification Group D.
Look at Jason McAteer’s face. Can you believe we all looked that happy for a few weeks before we all learned about a little Japanese island by the name of Saipan??
1) The Cage
The granddaddy of all football advertisement. Of advertisement in general. We can guarantee you that if FIFA took 24 of the world’s best players, trapped them on a sea-faring football pitch and made them play each other in a cage with Eric Cantona making up the rules as he goes along – nobody would even remember the words ‘World Cup’.
