Goal II: Living The Dream

It’s taken me a long time to get around to watching this one. I saw the original Goal! probably around four years ago in Newcastle. It did quite well in Tyneside cinemas, probably because it was set around the city and because it was about football.

What was really good about it was that the backbone of the story wasn’t the football – it was very much the characters. Sure, there were your stereotypes, but what would you expect from the scriptwriters of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Clement and La Frenais aren’t involved in this, the first of two sequels, and to some extent it shows. Mind, with far less of the film being set on Tyneside their influence perhaps isn’t needed.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Muñez progresses from Newcastle United to Real Madrid (in a swap deal which brings Michael Owen the other way!), and begins to face the problems of the Spanish football scene, and being away from his fiancée. Also, more family secrets come out as the film progresses.

Goal II is pretty much an extended edition of a football-themed soap opera. On this note, I have to make a confession. The only soap I have ever followed on television is Sky’s Dream Team. Partly because it was about football and partly because of the stylish way they merged real Premier League footage with the actors.

The Goal series doesn’t quite manage the technical wizardry of the TV series, instead opting for just using the real players and filming live segments in front of huge crowds. It works quite well, though some of the footage doesn’t quite ring true.

It is, as every sports movie seems to be, a “rags to riches” tale, but it’s good to see that the sequel just isn’t a rehash of the first film, only with a Spanish accent. The scene is different in Spain, the film concentrates on the Champions League rather than La Liga and the domestic tension steps up a notch.

In true soap style, the ending is a real cliffhanger… though not on the footballing front. One very simple scene, a few minutes from the end, simply had me gagging for the third installment – even before the “To Be Continued” flash before the credits.

Sure, it’s not going to appeal to everyone. It’s not complex, but it’s about football and it makes a change from the tabloid-led stories we hear of in the real world. The football scenes are entertaining and the acting’s pretty good – partly as Backham doesn’t have any dialogue in this one.

Best of all, Goal 3: Taking on the World (yes, it’s based on the World Cup…) is due out in a month.