Whenever an international football tournament comes around, one thing every fan looks forward to before the action gets underway are the commercials. Sportswear giants always come up with the goods, sometimes with an all-star ensemble, just to warm us up for the games ahead.
Nike seem to have outdone themselves this time with a commercial named “The Switch” featuring Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo as the protagonist along with a young English kid named Lee. It starts off with a collision off the pitch which leads to Ronaldo and the ball-boy “switching bodies” when they wake up the next day.
Lee wakes up in Ronaldo’s bed in his luxurious mansion, Ronaldo wakes up in a suburban English home seeing posters of himself on the wall. It’s only when they take a look good at the mirror that they realize they’re in a world of trouble.
Ronaldo goes through the motions in the Portuguese national team’s training camp and struggles to play at the same elite level that saw him win three Ballons d’Or while Lee graduates from the neighbourhood pitch to playing for a Premier League side, even managing to face Barcelona in the Champions League!
With a number of other stars such as Harry Kane, Anthony Martial and Raheem Sterling, the commercial has an epic climax where Ronaldo comes face-to-face with Lee in an international game. What happens next?
It’s the perfect way to welcome Euro 2016 that kicks off on 10 June as hosts France take on Romania in the opening match. 24 teams will battle it out for the ultimate prize in an all-new format that now sees a Round of 16 and giving third-placed teams in the group stage another chance to qualify for the knockout stages. The Round of 16 kicks off on 25 June with the final scheduled for 10 July.
