Looking for Eric (2009)

Eric Bishop, is a Manchester United fan and a postman from Manchester who is having a rough go of it. He is caring for his two stepsons because their mother, Eric's second wife, who was just released from prison has not returned. The boys are giving him a run for his money but he does the best he can. His daughter depends on him for baby sitting, but who can he depend upon?

Eric looks back to a simpler time. Singing songs, drinking beer and cheering for Manchester United and "the greatest center forward that the world has ever seen, : Eric Cantona. His friends do their best to try to cheer him up, but it has been seven years since his wife left and he is still in a funk.
Eric is in need of advice and he starts talking to the poster of his idol, another Eric, French footballer Eric Cantona. Cantona appears to him and starts giving advice about getting his life, and his family's life in order. Cantona makes him open an old trunk and face his past. Eric has to meet his ex-wife Lily, as they exchange Sam's daughter for babysitting. He doesn't think he is up to it. Cantona tries to build him up.
Cantona: "He that forecasts all perils will never sail the seas."
Cantona: "He that is afraid to shake the dice will never throw a six."
Cantona: "If you do not enter a tiger's den, you cannot get his cubs."



When Eric meets his ex-wife to pick up the baby, he is nervous, but things go fine. His step-son the goes off to a Man U game with his gangster friends. Eric tells Kantona of how he left Lily. Kantona encourages him to talk to her. Eric then heads off to the bar with his mates to watch the match.

FC United rebel fans chant :
Won't pay Glazer or work for Sky,
We still sing City's gonna die,
Two United's but the soul is one,
As the Busby Babes Carry On


Then Eric sees his step-son getting roughed up by the hoodlums. he tries to talk to him but gets nowhere.
Catona tells him: "You must say no."
Eric talks to Cantona and asks him about some of the highlight plays of his career, but Cantona doesn't remember.

Eric: "All right. sweetest moment ever."
Cantona: "It wasn't a goal."
Eric: "It's got to be a goal Eric."
Cantona: "No"
Eric: "C'mon. last minute, FA Cup final against Liverpool. Beckham takes a corner. The goalie runs out. He punches it away. It hits your chest, hits the floor on its way up. Bang, you thwack it right in the net."
Kantona: "No"
Eric: "Wimbledon, It's got to be Wimbledon. You're going towards the ball. The balls coming in. You're sussing out the trajectory of it, the angle of it, the spin of it, the way the wind's blowing, the speed of the wind, everything. You stick your right foot out. You stop it in mid-flight. It bounces up about a foot off your leg. You come back. You whack it in. The most perfect volley in the world. In it goes. It's a goal. It's got to be a goal, Eric.
Cantona: "It was a pass."
Eric: "A pass?"
Cantona: "Yeah."
Eric: "Ah. My God. To Irwin against the Spurs. Yes! Beautiful."
Cantona; "I knew how clever he was, left, right footed. Came in a flash, I just flicked it with the outside of my boot. Surprise everyone. He took it in his stride, and my heart soared."
Eric: "A gift."
Cantona: "Yeah, like an offering to the great god of football."
Eric: "What if he had missed?"
Cantona: "You have to trust your teammates. Always. if not, we are lost."

Eric starts talking to Lily, and slowly the barriers start to come down. Kantona gets Eric to dance again. Kantona then starts to get Eric in shape and Eric then starts to use some tough love with the kids. No work - no food. His life is starting to come together.
Then Eric finds a gun hidden in the house. The gangsters are having Eric's step-son hiding a gun for him. His step=son, Ryan, wrestles the gun away and hits Eric with the gun. Eric goes looking for him but he can't find him, but there was a shooting. When Ryan comes home he puts the gun on the table. He tells Eric that the gangster is making him hold it. The gangster shot someone because someone insulted him at a club.
Eric then goes to see the gangster, but he won't take the gun back. The police then raid the house, looking for the gun, but they don't find it. Kantona tells Eric that he must depend on his teammates.
Cantona: "If they're faster than you, don't try and outrun them. If they're taller, don't outjump them. Right? If they're stronger on the left, you go right. Remember?"
Eric decides that the the thing the gangster is afraid of is losing face, so on the way to the next match they have the bus stop at the gangster's house. "Operation Cantona" is on.

"What a friend we have in Jesus."
He's our savior from afar.
What a friend we have in Jesua.
And his name is Cantona."

They get out at the gangster's house with sticks and bats and all wearing Cantona masks. They destroy the car and the house and film it all. They tell the gangsters to never go near "that" family again, and the movie will go on YouTube.
This film's message is not really about football – it's more about the value of friends and people you can rely on when all seems lost. Footbol is like life. Eric is amazed that Catona enjoyed passing more than scoring, and that is a message that is important to all of us in life and football.
Sometimes an assist is more important than a goal. You have to trust your teammates. I really love everything about this movie.

The Van (1992)

This is not really a soccer movie, but is the story of two friend, Bimbo and Larry, who open a fish and chips truck; a chipper.

The hurry to get the chipper ready for the start of the 1990 World Cup in which Ireland is trying to qualify.

Bimbo asks Larry to be his partner, and Larry agrees. Washing, painting ... they slowly get the van in to shape. They try different recipes as they try to get the best chips. When the van is ready they pull it behind their car. They park it near a bar which is showing the 1990 World Cup live and then go in to watch the game. Ireland makes a goal and ties up England 1 - 1 and the game ends in a tie. The Irish goal was scored by Kevin Sheedy.

After the game they hooked up the van to the car's battery and opened for business. As the bar emptied out they got very busy. The Ireland drew with Holland and Egypt and qualified for the next round. Business got so good they ran out of food.

Now it's Ireland against Romania. It comes down to penalty kicks. Packie Bonner made the save on the last Romanian kiccker and in one of the best moments in Irish soccer David O’Leary made his shot as the Republic of Ireland progressed to the quarter-finals of the 1990 World Cup Finals.

In the next game Ireland got beat by Italy 1 - 0 and it was over. It was still one of Ireland;s finest moments in soccer.

This was the third installment of Irish author Roddy Doyle's 'Barrytown Trilogy', following 'The Commitments' and 'The Snapper'. It was very well done and needs to be seen by all Irish football fans.

Strangers (2007)

An Israeli movie set during the 2006 FIFA World Cup is taking place in Berlin. Rana, is a Palestinian living in Paris and Eyal, is an Israeli who grew up on a kibbutz. They sit across from each other on a subway and when she gets up to go, Rana picks up Eyal's backpack by mistake. They agree to meet in an hour, but first they look through each other's stuff.

When they meet, they like each other, and find out both are there to see the Finals. They go off together to try to find a place to stay the night. They hit it off as they talk about poetry, and they find a place to spend the night. They find a soccer ball and kick it around the empty apartment and then out to the street.

Eyal talks to his father and finds out two Israeli soldiers habe been kidnapped by the Hezbollah in Lebanon. They talk about the Israeli-Palestinian situation and then they decide they won't find a solution to the problem, so they have more wine an
Eyal: "The Palestinians, I blame them that Israel doesn't have a good football team, because all the good people.."
Rana: "Yeah?"
Eyal: "They go to be pilots, and they go to be tank men, and the Palestinians they go to be terrorists. If there ws peace, they'd go to be football players.",br> Rana: "Yeah you're right"
Eyal: "And in the Finals it would be Palestine against Israel, maybe."
Rana: "Yes. So the Israeli team, they are bad? That's what you say?"<.br> Eyal: "Yeah, they're... They're very bad. they play like Arabs."

They watch the game on a big screen in a big crowd, but it is like they are by themselves. They hug, they kiss. Later Rana gets a phone call. She must go back to Paris tomorrow. At the airport Rana asks Eyal not to call her - it will no work between them. Eyal head back to the stadium to watch the game. Italy defeats France on penalty kicks to win the World Cup.

Eyal calls Rana but gets her answering machine. The Lebanon War breaks out back in Israel. When Rana gets back home we see that the had a son, Rashid, with asthma, who was staying with a babysitter. She has a boyfriend, but she doesn't want to be with him. Eyal heads to France to find her. When he does she is not happy. he tells her to call him if she wants to.

After an ashtma attack, Rana rushes to the hospital with her son. They ask for her information, but she doesn't have it : she is illegal. The police come for her. Rana needs someone to watch her son, and she calls Eyal. Eyal comes and picks Rashid up from the hospital. Later, Rashid runs away, and Eyal catches him. When he has an asthma attack Eyal takes care of him and they start to get along.

Eyal returns Rashid to Rana, and Rana explains to him about her situation. She explains that Rashid is the result of a relation with a married man. When she decided to keep the baby, Palestine became dangerous for her.

Meanwhile back in Israel the bombings have continued and Eyal calls his dad in Israel, and Rana called her Palestinian friends. Eyal and Rana talked about everything, but not the bombings. When they meet her friends, they talk about the Israelis and Eyal gets up and leaves, and Rana apologizes. Then Eyal gets a phone call, he has been drafted again. He must return to Israel tomorrow. he says he will be back when it is over.

A movie about how when it comes to a personal level, people will get along regardless of race or country. More of a love story, than a soccer story, but it was very well done.

Vasermil (2007)

The movie is about three Israeli boys who may get a chance at a better life by their involvement in soccer. Dima is a Russian immigrant who hates school and his stepfather and deals drugs on the side. Schlomo, a native Israeli, also hangs around with some shady characters and has a bad temper. Adiel, although born in Israel, is still considered an outsider because his roots are Ethiopian. But all three are connected by soccer.

The movie starts with Dima stealing a motor bike. The bike he stole was the one Schlomo uses at work. Schlomo fights with his swearing and screaming boss and leaves work. Next we see Adiel playing soccer on a sand field and he has great ball skills, but then we see him sniffing a drug.

Adiel and his brother find the bike Dima abandoned and eat the pizza that's on it. Schlomo and Matan then come upon them and beat them up, thinking that they stole it. We then see Dima at home with his abusive stepfather. Later we see Adiel at home with his sick mother.

Adiel a starts playing on the same soccer team as Schlomo and Dima, who has been skipping school, is forced to be the manager. There is racism on the team and they won't pass the ball to Adiel and some of the players foul him on purpose.

Schlomo lost his job aand was owed a month's salary. he breaks in but there is no money so he wrecks the place. Adiel gets in to a fight at a club and Dima comes to his aid. Then at a game against some older players, after getting beat badly in the first half, Adiel gets in and Dima goes in for the hurt goalie. They turn the game around and the team wins, and a fight with the other team draws them together.

The store owner wants revenge on Schlomo, but his brother who is a local gangster fixes it so he can work off his debt, but Dima has a big game on the day of his first shift. His bother comes and tries to take him but Schlomo's coach protects him. At the big game, with scouts watching, the boys play like a team and win the first game. In between games Schlomo gets beat up by gangsters. Dima goes to pick up a shipment of drugs, and gets arrested. Adiel goes looking for his lost little brother.

A very well done move has a documentary look and feel to it much like the work of Ramin Bahrani. Seems more like you are looking in to someone's life, rather than watching a movie that they were in.

United (2011)

The movie is based on 1958 Manchester United team that was the youngest ever to win the English League Football League. They were called the "Busby Babes" and they progressed from the club's youth team into the first team under the management of Matt Busby and the guidance of assistant manager Jimmy Murphy. It is also the story of the 1958 Munich Air Crash that claimed eight of their lives and the lives of fifteen others.

The movie primarily focuses on Bobby Charlton who makes and then starts for the team in 1956 playing for Jimmy Murphy. Manager Matt Busby persuades the English League to let the United play in the European cup, but gets the OK only if they can get back in time for regularly scheduled league games.

Busby, who is hurt, blames himself for rushing the team back to meet its obligations even though the conditions were bad. It is up to Jimmy Murphy to pull the team together. The Board wants to shut down the team for the time being, but Jimmy says it will be done. Jimmy begins recruiting players to fill in for the team. Bobby Charlton doesn't think he can play without his mates but he eventually comes around. Jimmy fields a team for United's next game and Bobby comes to watch.

Bobby comes back and helps lead the team to the FA Cup Final just three months after the tragedy. Matt Busby comes back and talks to the team before the game. hey lost in the finals 2 - 0, but the United was back.

A pretty good movie which told an interesting story, but really didn't do that job of getting you involved in it. It was an amazing story though. Well worth seeing just fir that.

Historias de Futbol (2007)

Three stories about futbol from Chile. In the first story during a soccer game a Carlos doing a header gets hurt, and ends up in the hospital. He plays for a third division team and works as a carpenter during the day. A local hood, Don Angel,tells him that a higher division team is interested in him and that he should drop by his office. He offers him money to score no goals on Sunday. Catlos takes the deal.

The crowd is excited on Sunday as the local team goes for the Cup. Catlos has some chances but doesn't finis, on purpose. The crowd soon turns on him. But in the end he can't resist : he scores and Don Angel walks out. Later Alex gets beat up but I think it was worth it to him.

In the second story set in Calama, some young boys want to see a local pro game but can't get in. A ball sales over the wall and the boys take it and run with it. They soon start playing with it. Pablo's mother has to pawn their last item of value, a picture of the Last Supper. On the way home he gets involved in an all day soccer game. Somehow he lost the money from the pawn shop but they won the game. He ends up pawning his new ball to make up for the loss.

In the last segment Francisco, a boy from Santiago, is stuck out on remote island of Chile on the same day that Chile has to play a qualifying match with Germany for the World Cup. The only TV around is at the house of the Ceron sisters. Most of the males in the town gather at the house to watch the match. Meanwhile the older sisters plot to spend some quality time with young Francisco and the sisters get all made up. The men sit transfixed in front of the grainy little TV with the picture going in and out with the storm. Germany scores. The TV goes out and a drunken Francisco climbs the roof to fix the antenna. When he comes down one of the sisters takes him in to get out of his wet clothes and Chile scores to tie the game.

O Casamento de Romeu e Julieta (2005)

"Your granfather had fifteen lovers. And fifteen times I forgave him. But the day I found out he switched teams because of number sixteen, a Palmeiras fan ... I packed up his things, threw them out on the street and changed the locks on my doors.

Romeo and Juliet Get Married is a Shakespeare-inspired movie set in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and is the the story of Julieta, who is the daughter of Alfredo Saragatti, the director of the Palmeiras soccer team and single father Romeu who is the leaders of the Corinthians soccer team fan club, the chief rivals to Palmeiras.

When the Palmeiras soccer team decides to stop funding for their women's team, captain Juliets is not happy. She tries to burn her Miss Palmeira sash, but her father pulls it out of the fire, only to burn his daughter's eye. Her eye doctor turns out to be Romeu. Romeu and Julieta go out on a date, and Julieta explains that her name came from two Palmeiras players, Julio a right wing and Echevarrietta, a center-forward. Romeu lies and says that he is a life-long Palmeiras fan also.

They both love soccer, and soon come to love one another. When it comes time to make love, Romeu has some problems because of the Palmeira signs, blankets and sheets that are all over Julieta's apartment. Will he call Julieta again? Romeu starts reading up on Palmeiras' history. But Julieta knew all along that Romeu was a Corinthians fan, and when she lets him know, the pressure is off.

When Romeu goes to pick up Julieta though he must keep up the pretense for her fanatical father. The father, Alfredo, thinks Romeu is a die-hard Palmeiras fan. To him the most important thing for his daughter's suitor is that he is a Palmeiras fan. Romeu goes with Julieta and her family to the Palmeiras / Corinthians game ans has to pretend he is a Palmeiras fan. Romeu's grandmother, Nenzica, sees him and is devastated. She calls him Judas Iscariot and tells him to never talk to her again.

Romeu goes over to tell Alfredo the truth, but chickens out and agrees to go with him to a Palmeiras world championship game in Tokyo against Manchester United. Alfredo breaks his foot and ends up in the hospital and Romeu and Alfredo watch the game on TV. Romeu tells Alberto that he and Julieta are going to have a baby.

When it looks like the plane may go down Romeu tells Alfredo the truth. "I love your daughter but I'm a Corinthian's fan, dammit." Alberto goes crazy and people on the plane start chasing the traitor who jinxed them. Romeu locks himself in the cockpit and gets on the news when they land. Alberto finally comes around when he sees he may lose his daughter and his wife.

A very funny, clever adult comedy in the American screwball comedy style about the passion and fanaticism of the soccer fans, with a touch of Shakespeare.

The Colors of the Mountains (2010)

Set in Columbia, this is the story of nine year old Manuel, the son of Ernesto and Miriam who plays with his old soccer ball every day. with his friends Julian and Poca Luz. Manuel wants to be a goalie. When a bew teacher, Carmen, comes to town, Manuel follows her. We see the graffiti "Arm the People! Victory or Death!" on the side of the school building.

Manual's father is not happy the new teacher has come. He needs Manuel to help on the farm. Men with gones come, and Manuel's mother brings them something to drink, while he and his father,Ernesto, stay hidden. The men are looking for Ernesto, who hasn't been coming to their meetings. They say he better show up for their next meeting.

School starts and all the grades go in to the one classroom with Carmen. Julian's bother has left home. He thinks he has gone to the mountains, to join the guerrillas. When they get to the soccer field the guerrillas are there : no game today.

Manuel turns nine, and gets goalie gloves and a new soccer ball. People start fleeing the area. Some people who cooperated with the guerrillas have been killed. When a pig gets a way from Manuel's father it runs in to a mine field and is blown up. Unfortunately, Manuel's new ball had just rolled in to the same field. That means no more playing on the soccer field, and no ball.

The boys try different schemes to get the ball, but have no luck. Somehow the albino Poca Luz is the one being used to try to reach the ball. In one attempt which has him swinging from a rope, Poca Luz falls and lands in the field but Manuel and Julian are able to pull him back up, but Poca did lose his glasses.

The new slogan painted on the school says "Guerrilla! Put On a Uniform Or Die a Civilian!" The teacher has the students paint a beautiful landscape over it. Then Julian's father is taken by the government forces because his son is a guerrilla and he comes back dead, tied to a horse. You can't stay neutral and you can't join a side. There is no winning in this situation. The teacher is forced to leave the school.

Then the government forces come for Manuel's father, even though his father was never really involved with the guerrillas. When Manuel comes home his father is gone. Manuel's mother tells him to pack, they are leaving. Manuel then goes back for the ball. He makes his way to it, and gets Poca's glasses too. Manuel's Mom then closes the gate to their house.

To his parents earning a living and living with the pressure from the guerrillas and the government forces were the important things. To Manuel there was only soccer. A really good movie portraying a world that is hard to comprehend, and makes one feel lucky for the world you have.

Green Street Hooligans (2005)

West Ham till I die,
I'm West Ham till I die,
I know I am I'm sure I am,
West Ham till I die...

Elijah Wood, plays Matt Bruckner, an American who has just been kicked out of Harvard and goes over to live with his sister in England. There he is introduced to his brother-in-laws brother, Charlie, who introduces him to the world of West Ham football (not soccer!) and to the world of the hooligans.
The dialogue seems authentic and sharp and the boys talk in Cockney rhyming slang. The football songs are sung in in the pub as the boys get ready in their pre-game rituals. After the game the real action starts as the rival groups fight it out.
After seeing his first game Matt is heading home as the others go off to fight, but the rival "firm" had seen him with the West Ham boys and come after him. Luckily Charlie and the boys come to the rescue. When Matt takes part in the action he becomes one of the boys. Being that it's Hollywood, Matt who had never fought before, begins fighting like Spiderman and he likes the action.
Every football team has a firm and some have two. West Ham may have a mediocre football club, but they have a first rate firm - The GSE - The Green Street Elite.
Matt soon begins to get caught up in the adrenaline rush of the hooligan life style. It's almost like living in the Old Wild West as you plot your next caper to embarrass the rival firms. When West Ham draws Miljwall in the FA Cup, the bitter rivals will meet for the first time in ten years. Charlie's brother, the former leader of the firm, gets drawn back in and almost killed while trying to help out. Suddenly, all the glamor has gone out of the life style.
An Americanized version of The Football Factory that had come out the year before, this movie presents more of a Hollywood version of hooliganism, but it is still nasty and brutal. The movie which for a while seemed to be glorifying the hooliganism, finishes by pointing out how senseless it really all is.
Barely a soccer ball being kicked but still a very good football movie.

My Name Is Joe (1998)

Another great movie from Ken Loach, so unlike the movies that are made in Hollywood. The soccer in this movie is really used to lighten the tone of some very dark material.
Ken Loach again examines the lower working class and the criminal class in a rough area of Scotland. We see lives destroyed by drugs and alcohol.
Joe has been sober for ten months and has been going to AA. Joe hit rock bottom and decided to change his ways.
He coaches a soccer team that has trouble being competitive on the field. But Joe has taken one of the players, Liam, under his wing. Liam is a former drug dealer who is just out of prison, and his wife is a heroin addict. Joe has got his hands full trying to straighten out their lives.
Joe meets health worker, Sarah, and falls in love. It seems like everything is finally starting to go right for Joe, but it is like he is trapped in a noir movie. There is no escape from the tragedy that awaits him.
Roger Ebert had a great comment on the film. He said "Often with a film like this you think you know how it has to end. The ending of My Name Is Joe left me stunned. I've rarely seen a film where the conclusion is so unexpected, and yet, in its own way, so logical, and so inevitable."
A great, great film. Not really a soccer film but it might be the best movie ever made that had soccer as one of its subplots.

Shaolin Soccer (2001)

A movie from Hong Kong has a former soccer football player, Golden Leg Fung, who sold out by throwing a match, and then had his leg broken and ruined to go along with it, attempts to turn a family of Shaolin kung fu experts into a prize winning football team.
This a movie that breaks into dance or song at the drop of a hat. Mighty Steel Leg Sing keeps coming up with ideas to make money off the family's kung fu skills.
Sing discovers that he can use his Shaolin skills in soccer and wants Fung to train him. Kung Fu soccer. Sing's five down on their luck brothers are persuaded to join him. At first they are a disaster, but they get better and better.
There are some really good CGI special effects that show some dazzling soccer and kung fu skills. The brothers take on almost super human powers as they battle the evil soccer teams.
Corny and juvenile, but that is what the movie is aiming for. Good movie for kids.

Mean Machine (2001)

A remake of The Longest Yard, moves the story from the US to England and switches from American football to soccer.
Danny "Mean Machine" Meehan used to be captain of England's team. He has turned into a drunk and assaulted two police officers. He is sentenced to prison for three years. The prisoners and guards give him a hard time for letting down England during a World Cup game.
The prison warden, who is a gambler, wants Danny to coach his team. Danny agrees to it because he wants to get out after one year, instead of three.
When Danny helps an inmate getting beat up by the guards, he gets the some of the prisoners on his side. His biggest problem is trying to get the white prisoners to join the black prisoners on his team.
Once he overcomes that hurdle the rest of the movie is about Danny trying to blend the prison misfits into a team that can beat the guards.
Danny explains why he threw the World Cup game. He made a deliberate foul on the Germans because he was so far in debt to gamblers. he was given a choice : deliberate foul or wheelchair for life.
Danny has a choice. Will he let the prisoners down and throw the game again or will he betray the warden and the head gangster in the prison?
Not a bad movie but it wasn't as good as the original Longest Yard.