Over the years, many attempts have been made to translate the feverish joy of football from the pitch to the cinema screen. Results have varied, to put it kindly, but sometimes even distinctly silly football films manage to capture something of the agony and ecstasy of the occasionally-beautiful game. As they continue to suffer their way through Euro 2024, we asked fans, players and IFL contributors for their highlights from the world of football films, and what they say about the game itself.
Diederik Visser, Journalist, on Shaolin Soccer
What happens when you cross football with kung fu? Shaolin Soccer is not really the answer, as it is so over-the-top, so cartoonishly outrageous, that it has little to do with either. The underdog story of a bunch of former Shaolin brothers and current underachievers reuniting to form a football team, and using their out-of-this-world kung fu skills to take on an evil manager and his doped up squad, is a whole lot of fun though. The football matches are unbelievable – think live-action Dragonball Z on the pitch: they don’t just bend it like Beckham, they bend space and time in the process!
More than two decades after its release, not everything in the Hong Kong action comedy, directed by and starring Stephen Chow, has aged equally well. Some of the jokes are plainly homophobic – unfortunately this might actually be one of the few things it has in common with real football. Still, in the end, Shaolin Soccer has its heart in roughly the right place – amid al the goofiness, clichés, bizarre slapstick and, most importantly, hilariously spectacular football matches, it remains a story about a group of losers reclaiming their dignity and (spoiler alert) overcoming evil. If you’re an optimist, you might feel this also reflects some of the magic of actual football, where there is always a possibility, however small, that a tiny club can defeat the oil-money-backed football giants that dominate the game.
Charlie Giggle, IFL contributor, on Mike Bassett: England Manager
Mike Bassett: England Manager takes place in a sort of bizarre Blairite tabloid hellscape. It’s a comedy film which isn’t particularly funny, and a football film which has basically nothing to say about football outside of the debate between 4-4-2 and… anything else. The irony is, though, that in its very vapidity lies what could be the answer to England’s woes. English football seems to have always been in a battle between two incorrect and overreaching narratives. There’s Bassett’s crude nationalism, and there’s the proverbial coffee house, promoting a sort of insecure Europhilia. There’s Brexit, and there’s Remain. The danger is that increasingly these two sides become reflections of what they see as problems in each other, and both sides become short sighted and reactionary.
When Klopp stormed the Premier League with the ‘Gegenpress’, it was extremely trendy to credit him with this style. The reality, though, is that the pressing game was largely brought to the attention of the wider European football intelligentsia by Graham Taylor’s Watford side. The Brexit camp would be keen at this point to cheer and bemoan the lack of confidence of the Remain side. Were he still alive though, Graham Taylor would quickly pipe back and say he was inspired to take up this style of play by Viktor Maslov’s Dynamo Kyiv side. In reality, we spend the entire film debating the use of a Soviet football formation which wasn’t even played by England in 1966. Doesn’t that just say it all?
Rob Taylor on Escape to Victory
Paris 1942… A football match against Allied POWs is arranged as a propaganda stunt by the Nazis.
The German side, through a combination of good play and shithousery, take a 4-0 lead and cripple the Allies’ Luis Fernandez (played by Pele). Just before half-time an Allied counterattack instigated by Russell Osman, one of several Ipswich players involved in the film, ends in a goal (scored by Bobby Moore) which gives the Allies, captained by Michael Caine, hope against the odds.
A planned half-time escape is abandoned when the Allies, believing they can win, decide they would rather finish the match.
With grit, determination, and Ossie Ardiles, the Allies bring the score back to 4-3. As the Germans become increasingly frantic the returning Fernandez, escaping the attentions of the German captain, sends the ball out wide. He races into the box as the ball heads behind him, turns, leaps and, despite his crippling injury, lashes a perfect overhead kick home to equalize!
All of which is clearly ridiculous except… In our hearts we know that if there’s one man in the world capable of scoring such goal: Pele.
And that’s why, despite itself, Escape To Victory is great.
Jack Benjamin, IFL Editor, on Next Goal Wins
2014 documentary Next Goal Wins charts the slow progress of American Samoa – billed as the ‘worst team in the world’ thanks to a historic 31-0 drubbing by Australia – when Dutch-born coach Thomas Rongen is named as their new manager.
There are many wonderful things about the film – things which if you wrote in fiction, people would accuse you of being a ‘woke propagandist’. The redemption arc of goalkeeper Nicky Salapu – who shipped those 31 goals, but comes out of retirement for one last shot at winning. The touching portrait of Rongen, a man processing the death of his daughter, and using it to inform his empathy for his players. The powerful story of Jaiyah Saelua, who is faʻafafine – a third gender in Polynesian culture – who becomes the first out non-binary player to compete in a FIFA World Cup qualifier.
But best of all, the film doesn’t just show that the glory of this sport is not only the preserve of elite professionals. A taste of that glory is there for anyone who can learn to respect and love their team-mates for their different abilities and characteristics – and work together as equals. What keeps us all coming back to the pitch isn’t the idea we will win the World Cup – but that our collective efforts might bring us something better. Even if that’s only the elation of a goal, or a single win.
To that end, Next Goal Wins is the most perfect distillation of Bill Shankly’s great line: “The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It’s the way I see football, the way I see life.”