I've been racking my brains recently trying to think of a legitimately good film in which football plays a prominent part, and I've come to the conclusion that there aren't any. In the last few years I can think of 4 or 5 major films (including 2 from the Goal! franchise) that have featured football in some capacity, and none of them are really any good. Most sports can boast at least one cinematic success, but football struggles to find even one that's above average. I've come up with some reasons why I think this is the case.

First of all, while football is the most popular sport in the world, it's not in America, and that's where most of the money for films comes from. Most European films featuring the sport tend to be small affairs, like The Football Factory (another angry Nick Love film), or Mean Machine. The Goal! franchise is a bit grander in terms of budgeting, but those films are essentially adverts to sell the sport to Americans. Occasionally you get an oddity like Escape to Victory, which was supposed to be based on a true story about POWs who were shot after winning a football match against the Germans. But somewhere along the way that film was altered, and was turned into a fun but pretty inconsequential feelgood flick.

You could also say that the modern state of football is to blame as well. Clubs are now so aggressive in their youth policies, scouting, and transfer manoeuvrings, that a story about a plucky young star being left behind and having to fight against adversity doesn't actually seem that viable. When clubs are prepared to pay over £15 million for teenagers, the idea of an immensely gifted one being missed doesn't really make for compelling or likely film material.

Then there's the fact that football is a team game. You might say the same is true about baseball, American football and many other sports. But with most other sports, teams tend to have individual players who are praised more and who get much more attention. You can have an American football film about a star quarterback, or a baseball film about an aging pitcher. But try to make a film about a left back with a dodgy cruciate ligament and you're in trouble. Boxing is perfect for this sort film because they are usually all about one person, which is why so many boxing films work well.

The other reason boxing films tend to work well is that quite often the sport itself doesn't feature that much in them. The best ones, like Rocky and Million Dollar Baby, are about people who box because they have something they want to prove to themselves, or because it's their way out of a bad life. They are rarely a constant stream of training montages, power ballads... okay, Rocky IV is. But because football is so competitive and so popular plots like this wouldn't work; we would know that a 35-year-old wanting a way out of the gutter wouldn't stand a chance.

Maybe it's just the case that there's little room left for a good film about football. It's often said that there are always good ideas to turn into films, but with sporting dramas it's fair to say that the choices are limited. Maybe one day we'll get the footballing Rocky (and no I don't mean Stallone doing his amusing goalkeeping in Escape to Victory), but until that day comes I think most of us are quite happy playing, watching and supporting.

© David Mercier
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