Top 12 Football Adverts (With Videos)

By Chris Wright

For it is now Friday afternoon, Pies presents a rundown of our 12 favourite footballing adverts – which appears to see Nike featuring a disproportionate amount of times, so hats off to their creative team I suppose…

12. Socceroos take on the beasts for Optus, 2010

11. Kevin Keegan (and Sir Henry Cooper) for Brut, 1980

Keggy, somewhat unwisely, threatens to lash Our ‘Enry for crushing his perm with a sweaty towel…

10. Nike’s fearsome ‘Secret Tournament’ cage, 2002

The brainchild of non other than Monty Python cohort Terry Gilliam, this ad was so popular that it shot Junkie XL’s Elvis re-hash to No.1 in more than 20 countries…

9. John Arne Riise and Morten Gaamst Pedersen sing about bananas, 2010

Stone-cold classic in which the Norwegian duo give fellow countryman Erik Huseklepp the lowdown on healthy eating via the glorious medium of auto-tune…

8. John Barnes gets his ‘body fluids’ balanced with Lucozade, 1980s

A special-effects laden epic that seems to end with the product being endorsed rolling around at the bottom of a bin – not sure what kind of message that puts across…

7. Adidas and Lionel Messi, ‘Impossible Is Nothing’, 2008

Any football advert that features Ed Harcourt on the soundtrack is immediately worthy of a nod…

6. Carlsberg’s pre-World Cup ‘England Team Talk’, 2010

‘Epic’ is the word…

5. Nike’s ‘Next Level’, 2008

It was a toss-up between this and ‘Write The Future’, but Guy Ritchie’s effort just shades it by virtue of being that bit more original and that fact that it didn’t turn out to be cursed

4. Stanley Matthews for Craven ‘A’ cigarettes

What better way to wind down after the game than with a lungful of smooth, clean cigarette smoke?

3. Eric Cantona vs The Devil, 1994

Au Revoir…

2. Bobby and Tina Moore’s ‘Local Pub’ advert, 1960s

Bobby, Martin Peters and their two lovely lady wives ‘look in at the local’ for a few pints of foamy nut-brown ale and a quick game of ‘arrahs’…

1. Nike’s Joga Bonita, Brazil at the airport, 1998

Otherwise known as the advert that had everyone singing ‘Mas Que Nada’ in pigeon Portuguese  for the entire duration of the World Cup…

Any pearlers we’ve missed (there are probably hundreds)? Give us a nudge…