Why are there no good films about Football (Soccer)?
Football (Soccer) Films: The Movies are Terrible, but Why?
It's generally safe to say that Football is the most popular sport on the planet.
We know hundreds of millions watch cricket, and that the Superbowl draws huge audiences, as does the Olympics every four years, but Football is king.
Updated August 2023
There have been films made about nearly every sport you can imagine, and some are particularly good.
American sports in general translate well to the big screen, especially from a romantic point of view. From classics such as Bull Durham and Rocky, to the timeless Tin Cup, the Americans just do these films well.
Why then, does the world’s most popular game not manage to get it right on the silver screen?
"What about Escape to Victory?!" you may cry.
Well to be honest it was gimmicky and watchable but doesn't really capture the sport itself.
Perhaps the tribal element of supporting a football team is too strong to make your average fan interested in stories about other teams or countries?
Or is it simply that the game itself needs no further glamorising? Certainly, the world’s best players don't need the added recognition of being immortalised by an actor, they are already more well-known.
And who could possibly play Zlatan?
The Best Football Films
When Saturday Comes was a valiant effort at catching something of the essence of football, but it was also a personal showcase of Sean Bean, but the man clearly loves Sheffield United and it was a good watch.
The Damned United is the best one we've seen, and that was character-driven, the sport itself was somehow secondary to the larger-than-life figure of Brian Clough, former manager of Nottingham Forest, brilliantly played by Michael Sheen.
Can we suppose that the subject matter is emotive enough?
There are countless stories from the sport that deserve telling and would translate so well to the big screen.
The Busby Babes, The Lisbon Lions, Greece's 2004 Euro Winners, let alone the potential stories about fabled teams such as Puskas’ Real Madrid and more recently the unbelievable achievement of Leicester City winning the 2016 Premiership title.
Instead, 'Shaolin Soccer' and 'Goal' (1,2 & 3) are what we have to work with.
Surely there must be an opportunity to do better than that with the one sport that is truly global?
Perhaps it is because the audience is so broad and so segmented. Is it possible to make a film that talks to all football fans?
Many fans in Asia appear to immortalise the player, whereas fans in South America are incredibly partisan when it comes to their club associations. Could you find a narrative that appeals to both?
There might not be a universal way to tell a story without doing a ‘fly on the wall’ style series, like Amazon’s “All or nothing” about Manchester City.
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The other thing is that perhaps they are just not box office enough in the place that counts the most, the USA.
Also if you wanted to make it a success in China you would need to dub it properly, market it extensively and still try and get across the essence of the story, which is a lot easier with fake superheroes than sporting ones.
Films about American Football seem to work so well as they are more genuine and they are talking to an audience who are more engaged from the get-go.
This in turn makes the film compelling viewing for those who do not know the sport. It creates a certain mystery and a level of voyeurism among the viewer.
A window into a world that many would not understand, like College Football and a UK audience.
Perhaps we are destined to never see a decent film about football, if not we will have to console ourselves with the soap opera that is FIFA, the farce that is UEFA and the tragedy that is the Premier League in 2023.
The irony is that the movie world does quite a good job with films about football hooliganism, maybe its more interesting that what happens on the pitch!
