Football Fatheads: Has Soccer Finally Arrived in the US?

By: Daryl | June 19th, 2009

If you live in the US of A, then you’ve probably seen Fatheads advertised on your television. You may even have one on your wall. They’re basically lifesize images of famous athletes that you stick to your wall to inform the world that 1) you’re a big fan of (let’s say) Kobe Bryant and 2) you have no interest in interior decorating.

I’m not a fan, mostly because of the cost (if you can pay $100 for what’s basically a giant sticker, then you have too much money). But Fatheads are a great indicator of what’s popular. And so it has to be good news for the beautiful game that Fathead has recently added an international soccer category.

Fathead dipped their toe into soccer with MLS logos back in April, presumably because they’d already Fatheaded everything else out there. And now they’re expanding to include football from the rest of the world.

They’re starting small with just six players, all from the 2008/9 Champions League final: Cristiano Ronaldo, Leo Messi, Thierry Henry, Samuel Eto’o, Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney.

Ronaldo’s Fathead is still wearing a Utd kit, but at least the Fathead people know they’ve screwed up there:

And yes, we know that Ronaldo is most likely off to Real Madrid but he’s had such a great career at Manchester United that we felt like everyone should have a chance to get him in his Red Devils jersey.

(I’m going to translate that as “there’s no image of Ronaldo in a Real Madrid jersey yet and we can’t launch this thing without C-Ron, so we’re stuck with him in a United shirt for now.” I’d be very interested to know if and why anyone buys one though.)

Am I being overly-optimistic about soccer’s popularity in America by interpresting Fathead’s embrace as a step forward? Maybe. Maybe not. But it can’t be a bad thing.

And here’s a question: to make a big success of this, which players do Fathead need to add to their collection?

Some Related Stories:

Category: World Football

« Transfer Talk: Nobody’s Goin’ Nowhere. | Home | Daily Dose: June 19th, 2009 »

The Offside RSS Feeds

Mike

Large stock of wallbangers for sale on e-bay search under 'wallbangers' lots of premier league crests, players (some in old kit) and a few national teams (incl England) check it out.
Johnny1987

Like the Dicks Sporting Goods commercial indicates; Soccers time is Now. A: Hispanic population growth in the US. B: Frustration with steriods in other sports *cough baseball*. C: The Sounders and their beatiful feild and savage fans.... All this without Pele, Cryuff and Beckenbaur.... Soccers time is now.
shawn

they need to do club crests. i think that would be more popular. also, $100 is cheaper than trying to paint it yourself (or commissioning an artist to do it).
Johnny

Abby Clancy in a much needed WAGS series.
Lord Quas

Mauro Zarate from Lazio... pure class and we finally got him!
Matt

Who wants a scary Bulgarian dude on their wall? Maybe for halloween, as Berba can look vampire-ish at times.
Bishop

This is really a good idea. Hopefully this gives the sport more recognition here (in the US) and I certainly hope they show some of these players (why Berbatov?) in the commercials. They will probably add players from the more popular clubs like Chelsea, Milan, Inter, and so on. I would certainly get a Xavi one...
Ryan

I remember during EPL games they used to advertise for "Wallbangers" which they were clearly trying to sell as a British fathead. The company was based in Nebraska though...