Categories
Romance

‘A Winning Team’ (2023) is all about love

The Hallmark Channel produces as many as 100 films in a year, and A Winning Team may be its only soccer movie, ever. Like most Hallmark films, it’s also about how love of family plus a little romance pull the lead lady footballer back to a real life.

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Comedy Romance

‘Jaadugar’ (2022) is a sweet rom-com sprinkled with football and magic

Credit this film for its high quality and unusual story. Despite a lengthy 2 hours and 47 minutes, I did not check my watch while viewing Jaadugar (जादूगर). The story is well-shot and well-edited, and it deftly weaves together a tale of romantic comedy, football, and magic. In addition, I was entranced by the brilliant smile of its star, Jitendra Kumar, who plays Meenu, an extremely goal-oriented young man whose dreams are tied to the soccer pitch, but not in a way you expect.

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Drama Romance

‘The Keeper’ (2018) – when good play heals divides

The Keeper is based on the young life of ManCity goalkeeper Bert Trautmann, whose worldwide fame is due to having weathered the last 20 minutes of the 1956 FA Cup Final with a broken neck.

But fittingly, that incident is a smaller part of the movie, because the real story is how a Nazi soldier and POW became a First Division GK in English football in just a few years after the end of World War 2.

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Romance

More romance and less soccer in ‘See You Soon’ (2019)

See You Soon (До скорой встречи) is a beguiling romance that combines fairy tale, travelogue, and a little bit of soccer. Can America have a male soccer star who is a recognizable face worldwide but plays in the USA? To American hearts still aching from the failure to qualify in T&T, it feels like a fantasy.

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Comedy Romance

‘Kicking Out Shoshana’ (2014) is as cute as Some Like it Hot

You’re probably too young to have seen Some Like it Hot, an iconic 1959 comedy starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. In defiance of the film industry’s Hays Code, the film flirted with topics of homosexuality and cross-dressing.

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Notes Romance

Best Soccer Movies for Romance (2018)


 
Okay, you met this really nice, attractive, athletic, tries hard, never gives up, gets sweaty, male or female on the pitch. You both love soccer. Or, you already have your significant soccer soulmate and Valentine’s Day is coming up.

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Cultural Romance

‘Bend It Like Beckham’ (2002) tops soccer movie box office

Bend It Like Beckham proves that when a story is close to the heart, it can make an outstanding soccer movie and family film. At $78M, BILB is probably the top-grossing soccer movie of all time (made for ~$7M).

Categories
Comedy Romance

Ideal soccer date movie: ‘Romeo and Juliet get Married’ (2005)

A few years after making Bossa Nova, Bruno Barreto directed this Brazilian comedy, O Casamento de Romeu e Julieta, which is another, even better, soccer date movie.

Categories
Comedy Drama Romance

‘Johan’ (2005) finds love despite 10 footballing brothers

Johan is a very enjoyable dramedy/romance that, in a gentle way, shows that soccer is just a game, even in the Netherlands. The youngest in a family of 11 soccer-obsessed Dutch boys and their father, Johan doesn’t fit in because his obsession is music.

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Romance

‘Mad About Mambo’ (2000) samba on a Belfast pitch

Mad About Mambo isn’t known as a soccer movie, but it portrays soccer (and dance) ambitions in a light-hearted boy-wins-girl story that is sweet, humorous, and romantic. A 16 year old striker (William Ash) learns to samba with Keri Russell so that he can tryout for Belfast United.

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Romance

‘Bossa Nova’ (2000) dances into your heart

Are you 40 to 50-something and need a romantic comedy for a date night? Bossa Nova is your ticket, with a touch of soccer and a still-sexy Amy Irving.

Categories
Drama Romance

‘Yesterday’s Hero’ (1979) Football meets Suzanne Somers

Rod Turner (Ian McShane) is Yesterday’s Hero, a former big soccer star and womanizer drinking his way to the end of his career. The pop star owner of the third division Saints signs him for the semi-final game of the League Cup over the protestations of the team Manager.

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Romance

‘Playing for Keeps’ (2012) a muddled $35M mess

In Playing for Keeps, a retired and penniless Scottish soccer star (Gerard Butler) moves to a small town to reunite with his 9 year old son and soon-to-be-remarried ex-wife (Jessica Biel). He ends up coaching his son’s team on the way to becoming a responsible adult male and finding a new career as a sportscaster.

Categories
Romance

Hard to care about this ‘Coach’ (2010)

Coach is a straight-to-DVD film by first-time-feature Writer-Director Will Frears. Hugh Dancy is a slacker and soccer bum in New York City. He doesn’t need to work, but he finds romance and purpose when he takes a job coaching middle school kids to the league championship.