The film depicts the relentless nature of life as a footballer and the obstacles players of all levels and ages routinely face: self-doubt, boredom, loneliness, lack of form, being under constant critique and, most fittingly of all, impostor syndrome. Thankfully, by banding together and facing problems in unison, Hellstrom’s plucky clan of clones eventually overcome their various hardships and form a strong unit.
While a couple of the lookalikes do the job in a professional capacity (‘Ronalda’ is played by football freestyler and Ronaldo double Saki, and one of the Beckhams, Mark Woodward, has the Instagram handle “davidbeckhamlookalike,”) Hellstrom made sure his team of superstar impersonators weren’t overly lifelike to give what is otherwise a fairly realistic portrayal of the world of amateur football a light-hearted and surreal quality.
“I have always loved football and music, and he [Nilsson] knew I wanted to coach a team of misfit kids in a music video,” Hellstrom tells ESPN. “So when he presented the idea to do some sort of sport musical with me as a coach for Zlatan, a pair of Beckhams, Messi and Ronaldo, it was impossible to say no.”
The musician also revealed that he attempted to source a few more lookalikes to pad out his squad but was unable to successfully track down doppelgangers for a couple of the game’s biggest idols.
“We looked at [Diego] Maradona and Pele, but their lookalikes were also dead, unfortunately. We also had a long conversation with a [Kylian] Mbappe lookalike, but there was something with the younger players that wasn’t as interesting as with the more senior ones.”
“I wanted to make a warm and fun portrait of a team of superstars when the peak of their careers has passed. To do that, we hired the second-best we could find — their lookalikes — and all these guys turned out to be the most wonderful people.”
