10 Best Soccer Movies Ever
5. Goal!
Being a professional journalist (don't laugh, this website literally pays for my mortgage) I have to put aside all my obvious bias and unshakeable conviction over this film, and slot it in snugly at Number 5. However, Goal! is, obviously the greatest football film ever made and would be in the number 1 spot of any list where my heart was allowed to actually sing it's true song.
Telling the tale of Santiago Munez, a Mexican immigrant working dead-end jobs in California with dreams of one day playing football, the film is set in the Glorious People's Republic of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It shoots the football scenes almost perfectly, and the culture shock it depicts between sunny USA and the gritty North East of England is a borderline work of art.
It endures now as, arguably, the best feature film to actually document the Premier League in any significant way, with Munez quickly rising through the ranks at Newcastle United alongside a number of the club's real players and the fictional Gavin Harris. Filmed in parts in front of the 52,000 strong faithful at St James' Park gives Goal! a genuine feel that few other films have ever since matched.