Why there are so few good football movies?

Fever Pitch from the Other Side of the World

Far away across the Pacific lies China, a large country where people of a different skin color speak their own language and a different culture develops. Yet, it proves the passion for football there is no less intense.

During the 2023 International Football Invitational held in Beijing, China, Argenntina and Australia faced off against each other in a riveting match. Admist the fiece competition rushed out a sudden intruder all the way to give Messi a tight embrace beforing dodging the securities way round to give Martinez a high five. The game then had to give way to a cat and mouse chase, during which the man was encouraged by cheers and celebrations from fans on stands. Caught up in the end, he was forcefully carried away with each of his limbs grabbed by a safety guard, a smile of content lingering on his face. The expression has got a name by Chinese fans: die with not regrets.

Such incidents of football ultras is nothing new, but the one in the distant Asian country has something of an exotic note. Language barrier as well as geographical distance or even the 81st rank by FIFA never makes an obstable for them to express love for the sport and admiration for Messi. It's football, after all, the most popular sport around the globe!

There are very few good football films.

Despite the popularity, there seems to be a scarcity of football films. The only ones that come to mind from the 2000s are the "Goal!" trilogy, with ratings of 6.7, 4.6, and 3.2 on Peliplat. In terms of earlier releases, there's 'Escape to Victory' from 1981.

If the scope is enlarged to sports films, I will be able to name a lot more, such as boxing movies like "Million Dollar Baby," "Rocky," and "Ali." There are also some cool movies about climbing and mountaineering, such as the recent Oscar-winning documentary "Free Solo," "The Dawn Wall," and "127 Hours." and others like "Glory Road" of basketball, "Moneyball" about baseball, "Invictus" on ruby and more.

Interestingly, out of the top 100-rated sports movies on IMDb, only five of them are about football. If an extraterrestrial being tried to learn about human sports activities through movies, it would never guess that football is the most beloved sport on Earth.

It's so hard to make a good football movie.

Why aren't there more great ones? According to renowned British director Ken Loach, it's because the pace of football just doesn't jive with that of film. Loach directed "Looking for Eric," one of the top five football movies on IMDb, and it's a good one. It's about a middle-aged British guy who loves football and is struggling until he meets Manchester United legend Eric Cantona. It's a great story, but Loach says it's tough to make football-themed movies really stand out because film has its own rhythm and style.

Another issue is performance. According to Stephen Frears, the director of "The Queen" and an Arsenal fan, football runs too deep in people for filmmakers to just "fabricate" it. Actors trying to act playing football can be pretty cringe-worthy. Remember Kevin Costner's awkward-than-expected swing in "Tin Cup?" Or Tommy Lee Jones doesn't even know how to swing a club in "The Legend of Bagger Vance"? Yeah, we notice that stuff. That's why Gavin O'Connor cast real ice hockey players who could act for "Miracle," which tells the story of the U.S. ice hockey team winning gold at the 1980 Winter Olympics. However, bold choices like this are rare in Hollywood.

There are exceptions, though. "Bend It Like Beckham" is a great football movie about an Indian girl who falls in love with the game and Manchester United's Beckham. Neither of the female lead knew how to play football, but the other players on the team were young professional players, which made the matches in the film really authentic.

Funding is another major issue for football movies, a genre that isn't attractive for Hollywood investors. It took Director Gurinder Chadha three years to gain investment to film "Bend It Like Beckham". Without that support, even the most talented directors and crews struggle to make great films. Hollywood's lack of interest might just be the biggest problem facing football movies today.

It is Hollywood's preverence that makes it hard.

It's not that Hollywood studios can't produce excellent movies about football, but rather they simply don't make any attempt. For instance, when 20th Century Fox decided to adapt Nick Hornby's novel "Fever Pitch" into a film, they changed the sport from football (Arsenal) to baseball (Boston Red Sox).

Not that Americans do not love football. In fact, with the recent progress of the U.S. national football team, the number of football fans in the country has been increasing. Currently, there are over 50,000 teams in the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) and over 650,000 professional players in the United States.

However, such enthusiasm for football is a rarity in film production companies. It took great effort to secure sponsorship from Adidas to film the "Goal!" trilogy, but no entry of the only commercially successful football film series after 2000 had satisfactory box office. Therefore it's never an easy decision for production companies to make football movies. Even if they do, football won't be the main selling point.

There are numerous explanations from die-hard fans in Hollywood as to why football hasn't made it big in the United States. One is that football is not an American-invented sport. While the World Cup has high viewership, Americans have loose emotional bond with it, which never generates nationwide discussions like the Super Bowl (American football) or the World Series (baseball) does. Secondly, football matches feature spetacle moments that are difficult to recreate and capture with cameras. Furthermore, the long push and pull on the pitch to score makes it hard to craft climaxes in film. Additionally, football is a nearly continuous 90-minute game, unlik American football, baseball, and basketball, which are divided into several segments with frequent breaks for coaches to strategize and for filmmakers to design plots. Also, actors find it challenging to "act" the sport convincingly enough for audiences to give up watching real matches.

"So, like, some big shots in the movie biz think football is just for those soccer moms with their little rugrats," said Joe Roth, former head of major studios like Disney and Fox. He believes that Hollywood's preverence against football stems from the fear of "foreign things.”

The Meaning Behind Football

In recent years, some new football movies outside of Hollywood have made a breakthrough. Rather than solely focusing on the sport scenes, they delve into the underlying meaning behind it: competition, perseverance, love, and even ethical dilemmas of war.

"The Miracle of Bern", for exmaple, is a touching sports-themed film that depicts the historical reconstruction of Germany after World War II. As the closing narration states, "After Germany became champions, the economy miraculously recovered." The director tightly intertwines prisoner-of-war families, newspaper journalists, and the national team around football, the centerpiece of post-World War II Germany which served as a means for the nation to rebuild their self-esteem.

One more instance is "United," a 2011 film produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It portrays the infamous "Munich air disaster" of 1958, in which eight talented players tragically lost their lives. They are from the 1958 Manchester United team which had brought numerous miracles and countless unforgettable memories. At the end of the film, Sir Matt Busby walks slowly into the dressing room and says, "It's about showing who we are to the world. Showing we'll not be bowed by tragedy." This line remains the belief that Manchester United continues to strive for.

Regardless of skin color or race, despite language barriers and different customs, people share what football can bring them, which makes the sport so captivating. It could be the euphoric celebration after a victory or the melancholy sorrow in the face of defeat. It could also represent courage, strength, dreams—it can be anything. They are not only the alluring magic of football, but eternal themes in movies.