Listen, we're well aware that big companies like to do odd promotional stunts to gain attention – who could forget Jedward starring in Nintendo commercials? – but the latest campaign by The Pokémon Company's UK arm really has us scratching our heads.
It has enlisted the aid of the England Football Team to create the 'Pokémon Trading Card Game Kick Up Challenge,' and the first player to take part is Manchester United star Jesse Lingard (currently on loan to West Ham United).
The challenge is simple; the player has to keep the ball in the air for as long as possible whilst opening packs of Pokémon cards and clearly showing them to the camera for identification. As you can see, Lingard does pretty well and sets a score of 98 kick-ups with 12 cards pulled.

Manchester City's John Stones and Phil Foden are the other players taking part – can they beat Lingard's score? I bet you can't wait to find out, right?
[source twitter.com]
Comments 10
Zero. Because in order to open cards, I would need to be able to buy cards to open first.
And I haven't seen Pokemon cards in stock since last August anywhere. They've supposedly released 3 sets since then. Never seen them in stock anywhere.
Took me a month to dig up sealed packs to give my cousin for Easter. And those were 4 year old Sun and Moon cards buried in a Wal-Mart toy section, out of place.
@Heavyarms55 ah, a little bit of Walmart archeology. Let’s hope whoever hid them there didn’t come back to buy them, hah.
@Eel I doubt it. The packs had been weighed. I am pretty sure. Which is what scalpers used to do, before just buying everything available became the norm.
step 1: find pokemon cards to open
I enjoyed that way more than I should.
Huh, I've personally never had trouble finding pokemon cards. Granted I never buy them, it's not my scene, but there are always plenty on the shelves by the check-out line at my local Walmart.
But footballers throw the ball, they don't kick it (usually)!
@WaluigiNumberOne I checked my local Walmart again today, while I was getting my COVID shot and not only were they sold out, even the empty boxes were gone. It was just an empty shelf. The only product they had left was a small Pokemon card binder, that has been opened already.
The title can be read as "Random: The Pokémon Company Wants Footballers To Open Pokémon Cards"
Well this is depressing regardless of how you look at it. TCG supply is still at an all-time low due to scalpers & hypebeasts and TPCi STILL thinks this is an okay thing to do? It’s becoming more and more clear that those Tweets that were published by Play! Pokemon were empty promises.
Also, it’s worth noting that TPCi more than likely supplied the players in this video with said cards. They occasionally do this for various PTCG YouTubers in order to promote the game.
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