A video of a spectacular drone show paying tribute to Moroccan goalkeeper Yassin Bounou has taken the internet by storm after his spectacular performance in the 2026 World Cup quarter-finals against France. The footage, which was widely shared on social media and relayed by several news outlets, was featured over the weekend as an actual vigil that reportedly took place in Safi.
Yaviradi later debunked the video as AI-generated, pointing to a series of inconsistencies including its 15-second length, visual flaws, and other clues typical of AI-generated content. We’ve now spoken to the person behind the viral video.
Yasin Arlich, a Safi-based interior architect and branding expert, said he created this clip using open source AI tools available on GitHub. After uploading a photo of Bounow, he instructed the software to generate a drone show featuring a portrait of the goalie, a crowd of people holding cellphones to view the scene, and a crowd cheering when the image was complete.
What happened next was completely unexpected, he recalls. “I made a video, posted it on Instagram, and went to sleep,” he said, explaining that when he woke up the next morning, he received messages from journalists and media outlets asking if the drone show had really taken place.
Erlich said the video was aimed only at his 21,000 Instagram followers, and he never expected it to reach more than 4 million views in less than two days. He admitted that when he first shared the clip, he did not indicate it was generated using artificial intelligence because he believed it was “obvious”.
clear up confusion
But as the video continued to spread, Erlich said he started receiving messages and comments from people who believed the drone show was real. He admitted that this was the first time he realized “the downside to it,” explaining that many people are still new to AI and can be easily misled by this type of content.
After realizing the extent of the misunderstanding, Erlich said he updated his Instagram post the next day to clearly state that the video was created using AI. He also contacted the pages and news outlets that reposted it, asking them to clarify that it was not authentic. “I reached out to them through Instagram and called some of them and explained that the video was created by AI,” he said.
Arrich, who regularly shares AI-generated images and videos on his Instagram account, attributes the clip’s extraordinary success largely to its timing. “I think Bounu’s video went viral because of the context, the World Cup, the excitement of the football world and especially Bounu’s outstanding performance against France,” he said.
