Product Description: In the spirit of REMEMBER THE TITANS, MIRACLE, and THE ROOKIE, THE MIRACLE MATCH is the incredible story about the men behind one of the all-time greatest upsets in sports history. Two weeks before the 1950 World Cup, a ragtag group of recreational soccer players from St. Louis and New York were chosen to represent the USA in Brazil. Consumed with conflicts ? personal, cultural, and playing styles ? they had mere days to become a team. And then they had to play the British, the best team in the world. Inspired by a newfound belief in the team, their passion and talent turned into pure magic on the field ? and the unthinkable happened. Filled with heart-stopping action, and featuring Patrick Stewart, this triumphant story is a rousing celebration of the human spirit, love of the sport, and pride of country.
Amazon.com: The writing-directing team of Angelo Pizzo and David Anspaugh tries to do for soccer what their films Hoosiers and Rudy did for, respectively, basketball and football. Here's another true story, a legendary upset in the early days of the World Cup. In 1950, America hastily forms a team to play against the world. We center on a tight Italian community in St. Louis providing the bulk of the national team. We meet GQ-ready stars led by goalie Frank Borgi (The Phantom of the Opera's Gerald Butler, deftly handling the duties). This brotherhood of players is unfortunately strapped to play off clichés and the movie never really engages us beyond the autumn-tinged scenery. A big part of the blame goes to the narrator telling us what we should be feeling (perhaps because we dumb Americans don't know soccer, er, football, like the rest of the world). No fault in the performance of the narrator/journalist (played by Patrick Stewart as the elder, Terry Kinney as the younger) or the rest of the cast. Perhaps the game is elusive to cinematic grandeur, (how many memorable soccer movies can you name?), but the movie is also tired and slow, something those earlier sports films were not. There's only a brief stirring when the earnest Gino (Louis Mandylor) has a wedding-date conflict and as the most famous English player of the day, Stanley Mortenson (Gavin Rossdale), patronizes the Americans in a public speech. Perhaps the studio knew they had a cellar dweller; the film was barely released and retitled for home video echoing the moniker of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. Soccer kids will enjoy the film, but others better stick to Geoffrey Douglas's book, The Game of Their Lives, the film's original title (and mistakenly left on the end credits). --Doug Thomas
Can we do it? Yes, we can! My title line should not be a spoiler: "Can we do it? Yes, we can!" If so, the movie title is a spoiler: "The Miracle Team"! What do "miracle teams" do? They come from the underdog position to win!
The cobbled team of St. Louis-New York players won the World Cup in the 1950 Championship game against the world's best team and best player in a 1-0 victory. How did it happen? How could this major sports upset even conceivably take place? After try-outs, two weeks of practice, and personal, ethnic, religious, and regional clashes of differences, the team finally jelled, even during the game for this sports coup.
Do you know the applied meanings of Apollonian and Dionysian styles of doing things? The New York team was Apollonian--structured, intellectual, controlled. The St. Louis team, comprised of Italians from the famous Hill area, was Dionysian (think god of wine)--loose, fun-loving, instantaneous. The two styles were a major conflict. New York was led by a man of German-descent, Walter Bahr (some of these men from St. Louis had served in World War II). St. Louis's leader, Frank Gorghi, was the go-to guy in leaving words of wisdom and guidance, while Walter was a cool, calculating, but also wise leader. The two were able to work together and make the team eventually click. Going against the manager's decision, they went as a unified front to convince Joe Gaetjens, an African player attending school in America, a natural athlete, and later the soul of the team, to play.
Breaking elements down:
PRO: 1. Considering that the movie was made by the same people making HOOSIERS and RUDY, both exciting sports movies, this movie was criticized for lacking that same excitement. I found the championship game most exciting and was on my feet cheering most of the time!
2. A major point is that the story was made into a movie enjoyable to watch, good for a family entertainment. Maybe another group later can remake it to include what other reviewers saw as weaknesses.
3. Only two actors' names stand out (Gerard Butler and Patrick Stewart). I liked the use of little known or unknown actors. It makes the viewer not single out favorites to watch. I know Gerard Butler is getting to be a big name now, but not at the time the movie was made.
4. The film looks professional. It is not an embarrassment for the celebration of this major American sports event or the players.
CONS
1. Lack of character development. There was enough for the viewer to get a working knowledge of each one's background or some little aspect of his character, but not enough.
2. What happened to the players after this major game? Viewers always want this information just out of curiosity. Did the game change them? Not change them?
3. One reviewer criticized the use of the sports reporter narrating part of the story to give background and explanations. This technique is not an uncommon use of characters. I saw nothing wrong with it. It gave a Greek chorus kind of narration.
Overall, "The Miracle Match" is a highly satisfying movie. I watched it a second time recently and discovered to my major surprise that I immensely enjoyed the movie much more this time. At the first viewing, I was not really into watching soccer.
This is a great movie to watch on July 4th, or in celebration of the American spirit to win at all odds, just like the revolutionists did in 1776. That was a miracle match, as are the teams in this movie. Both times the Americans defeated the British!
The Miracle Match ..."The Miracle Match" is another Gerard Butler film that i purchased in order to get a closer look at this amazing actor's theatrical range--i was quite please...very credible acting on all who participated in this film--i just couldnt get into the actor that played Patrick Stewart's part as a younger man...but other than that,the performances were natural and a compliment to the men being portrayed...and although there were other "big name" actors in this film, everyone is on the same page in making the viewer believe this larger than life piece of sport history...there wasnt a whole lot of unnecessary "lets just focus on this one or that one", just a simple formula of how a group of friends beat the odds of being labled not good enough...and that my friend, was good enough for me...
World Cup Saga As a Brazilian I was surprised and delighted with the film. In countries that have a strong football (soccer) tradition and world cup participation, the stories and the successes of their national teams in that championship are ingrained in the national psychic and are the stuff of legend. Aside the many documentary films, movies about world cup stories are rare (although some have the world cup as part of the background, like the new brazilian film "Quando meus pais sairam de férias", which depicts the political repression of the military regime and the 1970 World Cup). To my knowledge there are only two, both with the word miracle and set in the 1950's. The Miracle Match depicts the U.S miracle in the 1950 World Cup and Das Wunder Von Bern (The Miracle of Bern) the german one in the 1954 World Cup. The german film made in 2004 is far superior to the american one and also displays a rare glimpse of post WWII german life and hardship. For me the american film was a complete surprise (americans making an epic film about a word cup event!). Of course the event of the famous and humiliating defeat of the English Team at the hands of the U.S soccer team was already know to me. The fact is that the english generaly think that they are better than they really are, they make a fuss about themselves, and while respected and sometimes feared, they rarely match the 4 greats (Brazil, Germany, Italy and Argentina). The 1950 match against the U.S was the eye opener and from there, with the exeption of 1966, it was, as the London Times once put it, one "glorious" failure after another. Although the match took place in Belo Horizonte (which by the way is not a "mining town" as described in a review, but the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, which during the 17th'century and up to the middle of the 18th' century, was an important gold mining region) the scenes in brazil are filmed in Rio de Janeiro. The stadion used to film the match itself, is the stadion of the Fluminense Football Club, possibly one of the oldest in Brazil, built in the beggining of the 20th'century (it is funny to see in the film apartment buildings next to the stadion that were only built 10-20 years after the event). The huge Maracana stadion was built specially for the 1950 World Cup and was the scene of the final match of that championship. As an aside; if ever a brazilian director decides to make a film like this one, as far as drama is concerned, the best choice would be this 1950 Word Cup, but instead of miracle the word to be used would be trauma or shock. As far as brazilian teams go, the 1950 one was great, alongside the world champions of 1958 and 1970, together with the other defeated one of 1982, and superior to the world champions of 1962, 1994 and 2002. The loss of the final match to Uruguai in front of 200,000 spectators, for much of the same reasons that England lost to the U.S, ranks as the worst sport disaster in the history of Brazil.
Soccer Serendipity Beautiful film; wish it was longer as it was a fact base story, there could have been more...but what was given did not cut short of the heartfelt and uplifting mood of this movie. The actors were wonderful; the period made lovely; the sport, very ambitious action! Spin-off stories could and should be looked into, esp for Frank Borghi, Joe Gaetjens, Walter Bahr, Gino Pariani, Pee Wee Wallace, Stanley Mortensen, even Harry Keough...they all seemed to have so much more to contribute. I couldn't be a "Soccer Mom" and coach without them today!
Review of "The Miracle Match" We enjoyed this video because it is based on a little known but true historical event and doesn't contain offensive material. It is especially good if you like soccer as we do. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
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