National Team: Off the Pitch Acting Skills Shootout sorted by Position

By: Jan | October 13th, 2007

It’s fair to expect any player who deems himself good enough to play football for a living, to come with a minimum set of acting skills, ranging from faked injuries to pulling off a dive that is hard to read for the referee. Yet, once the players leave the pitch, most often than not, all this seemingly effortless acting verve is gone. Which puts advertisers in a difficult position, especially if their product has nothing to do with sports or football. That doesn’t mean they don’t try. Following Bob’s efforts to dig up vintage soccer commercials, I decided to dig up commercials by the current national team members. Time to decide whose the number one in Germany’s goal, defence, midfield and attack , based on qualities like stiffness and pantomimic ineptitude for a change.

Goalkeepers: Jens Lehmann vs Timo Hildebrand
Jens Lehmann doesn’t like people like Oliver Kahn, who glorify themselves. And he leads by example. Instead of maintaining a little shrine with his own cups, medals and achievements, he cherishes his advertising partners successes. In this case it’s an insurance company who couldn’t have asked Jens for more unhealthy identification with the product. He even invited his team mates over, who do their best to hide their irritation. Next up is Timo Hildebrand who has goalkeeping hardwired to his brain. Two kids are happy to exploit that and then they all eat rice together.

Defence: Christoph Metzelder vs Philipp Lahm
Christoph Metzelder stars in a commercial for Dortmund’s internet subscription service. His acting skills and the budget for this video make for a perfect fit. Philipp Lahm is a good example of what separates the German and English national team in appeal at the moment. In the English version of the Mario Strikers ad Shaun Wright-Phillips and his sidekick Ian Wright have to make do with playing against two guys, while Philipp Lahm has a group of four attractive girls on the phone who would love to teach him a little Mario Strikers lesson.

Midfield: Michael Ballack vs Torsten Frings
Both Ballack and Frings are on a mission to do good. A mute Ballack saves the relationship of some guy and his model girlfriend with a bouquet of flowers. Frings invited three kids to a dark empty stadium at night, where he shows us how you can use football to teach kids, who are in danger of going astray, the importance of a fresh breath.

Attack: Lukas Podolski vs Mario Gomez
Both commercials present us with an uneasy projection of the two strikers future about five years from now. Lukas Podolski failed to make it at Bayern Munich, and while many clubs often look after their former stars, and if necessary get them a job as youth coach or stadium announcer, Podolski simply didn’t do enough at Bayern to claim this service. FC Cologne had shut the doors for him as well, since he chose Bayern over playing in the second division. That leaves him with the national team as his last resort. And while Jogi Löw no longer has a place for him in is starting XI, he at least got him a job at the team’s shirt sponsor adidas, where he helps the company to financially exploit women’s vulnerability to deodarant, sweat and Podolski pheromones. Mario Gomez on the other hand still plays football, but Stuttgart’s downward spiral lead them to the presumably fourth or fifth division. At least the stadium and attendance figures suggest that. What is left for Gomez is to hold on to the Bundesliga trophy and tell the audience the lesson he learned: that success is temporary so start doing something about your retirement pay.