Watch France’s epic Women’s World Cup promo video

The France national team’s sponsor, phone company Orange, partnered with advertising company Marcel to produce this clever video ahead of the Women’s World Cup. Before you read any further, you should watch the video above.

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Now, this video is brilliant for many reasons. It begins with the big faces of the men’s national team - Kylian Mbappé, Antoine Griezmann - making incredible plays, including free kicks, headers, and impressive footwork while crowds and announcers go wild. It then comes up with a caption which reads “Only Les Bleus can give us these emotions” before revealing, “But that’s not them whom you’ve just seen”. The video then shows how they used visual effects to replace the female players who were actually making those plays (like Estelle Cascarino and Sakina Karchaoui) with the famous male players on the men’s national team.

People have been going wild reacting to the video on social media, with tons of praise for both its cleverness and its success in challenging our expectations of the sport when performed by men vs women.

The French team, Les Bleues, is ranked fifth in the world behind the U.S., Germany, Sweden, and England. In the last World Cup in 2019, they lost in the quarterfinals in a close 2-1 defeat to the U.S. team, who went on to win it all for the second consecutive tournament. The 2023 Women’s World Cup begins this Thursday, July 20 in Austtralia and New Zealand. France plays their first game against Jamaica in Group F on Sunday, July 23 at 6 a.m. ET at Allianz Stadium in Sydney, Australia.