"See How Far We've Come"

14 August 2023

60s

World Cup winner.

There's an impressive claim in this German commercial for Hyundai. The car company has, apparently, been sponsoring women's football since 1999. This is sufficiently ahead of the curve to be noteworthy, and deserving of genuine praise... so, you can't blame them for wanting to draw our attention to it.

The action depicted in the film goes back a lot further than 1999, and for good reason. As football became the dominant sport across the world in the first few decades of the 20th century, it was not at all unusual for women to play. As the ad quite rightly points out, there was a deliberate effort by the sport's authorities to reserve football for men, and, until relatively recently, this remained the case.

The renaissance of women's football has been a joy to witness, and, this review is being written as England and Australia prepare to slug it out for the right to play Spain in the women's World Cup Final in Sydney, and an event that once would have received marginal coverage will dominate the airwaves.

Director Nicole Ackermann has beautifully evoked this evolving importance in a splendid history of the sport, and has delivered it with spirit and humour. It's a great addition to the marketing around the competition... itself another indication of how far we have come.

Global

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