Reviews of soccer movies and football films
Documentaries about football, Fußball, and soccer
Football was the only way out of working in the coal mines. Bill Shankly was the youngest of 5 brothers (10 kids) who all became footballers for Glenbuck Cherrypickers. Over 40 years, 53 young men in Glenbuck (pop 1,000) became footballers, and 7 played for Scotland.
You don’t need to be a Liverpool fan to love Make Us Dream. But by the end of it, you may want to become an LFC supporter. Because Writer-Director Sam Blair brilliantly crafts the tale of Steven Gerrard so that his pain, his mission, and his love for club and city bind to your heart. When you watch this film, you believe the club is the man, and the man is the club.
The first feature documentary from Writer-Director Pascui Rivas, Ordinary Gods was meant to be a prestige piece. Along that line, his film does not show six young players as powerful future gods of football, nor as soccer royalty who will wow us with talent. Instead, Rivas lets us into their lives to reveal their human frustrations and fragility.
Continue reading “Ordinary Gods (2019): It takes a family to sustain a footballer”
Bobby Robson: More than a Manager is an extraordinary compilation of Robson archive footage interspersed with A-list interviews of coaches and players he influenced. Before this film, I didn’t know who Robson was, but in his prime is so alive and captivating that I could have watched him for another 2 hours. It is only towards the end, when he finally succumbs to cancer, that I realized he is literally communicating from the grave.
FC Barcelona is “Més que un Club” – More than a Club. And if you had any doubt, you should watch the documentary Barça Dreams. At 2 hours, this is probably the longest soccer documentary I’ve ever seen. Writer-Director Jordi Llompart covers the club’s history and culture, which has fermented and evolved since 1899. There is a lot of ground to cover, and it goes way beyond the pitch at Camp Nou, their fútbol stadium.
Continue reading “Barça Dreams (2015) – How the FCB brand really begins at home”
The title Yeşil Kirmizi refers to green and red, the colors of Amedspor, a Kurdish team that in 2016 played in the third division of Turkish football. To Americans, that sentence sounds harmless, but in Turkey, four of those words could be inflammatory. To strongman Erdogan’s Turkish government, professing Kurdish ethnic identity is tantamount to treason and the support of terrorism.
Post-football, Eric Cantona found a new passion and challenge: cinema. 30 years old, he unexpectedly retired from football in 1997. Among other reasons Eric has cited in retrospect: he was tired of playing the game. However, he transitioned to acting as well as beach soccer, popularizing the sport and managing the French beach soccer team for almost 15 years.
Continue reading “Looking for… fanatic football fans (2010-2015)”
With his bald head and authoritative, gnarly New York accent, I sometimes thought I was watching famous US soccer coach Bob Bradley. But no, this film is about Martin Jacobson, an American high school soccer coach who is, in many ways, much more successful.
Continue reading “Review: Coach Jake (2017)”
German fans still recovering from the team’s failure to advance at WC 2018 should return to watching Die Mannschaft. It is a nicely crafted love letter to Joachim Löw and the 2014 German National Team. It is a tribute to German football, showing everything the German Federation (DFB) did to optimize the team to win WC 2014.
Continue reading “Review: Die Mannschaft (2014)”
Directors and brothers Christopher and Alex Browne filmed After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United during the 2004-05 season. Almost 15 years have passed since the events were recorded, but judging from more recent soccer movies such as Forever Pure, life has changed very little for Arabs in Israel. Israeli Arabs (Palestinians) remain second-class citizens, and Arabic players are still subjected to hostilities from fanatic Jews, such as the fans of Beitar Jerusalem.
Continue reading “[Review] After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United (2009)”