The Miracle Match
by David Anspaugh
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DVD details
Actor: Costas Mandylor, Gavin Rossdale, Gerard Butler, Jay Rodan, Wes BentleyDirector: David Anspaugh
Brand: Team Marketing
Producer: Angelo Pizzo
Writer: Angelo Pizzo
Producer: Billy Higgins
Producer: Ginger T. Perkins
Producer: Greg Johnson
Producer: Howard Baldwin
Writer: Geoffrey Douglas
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.40:1
Running Time: 101 minutes
Published: 2006-09-01
DVD Release Date: 2006-09-12
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Model: 05203300
Color: Multi
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Product features:
- 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 t
DVD Reviews of The Miracle Match
DVD Review: USA win in 1950 was a great accomplishment in itself; none of it needed to be fabricated.
Summary: 2 Stars
I read the book The Game of Their Lives: The Untold Story of the World Cup's Biggest Upset and was very excited when I heard it was going to be a movie, I looked for it in theaters and I heard that is was played in some schools. The book is a classic in discussing that team and that game and I think much better than the movie which seems highly revisionist. No such revisions are needed.
Action wise, this is one of the best soccer movies yet for the filming of plays on the field much in the way, that 'Hoosiers' is a triumph in basketball. You do get a good feel for a real soccer game from this movie. The soccer footage I find enjoyable as in the 'Goal' movies, 'Victory' and a "Shot at glory.'
Factually, I believe it has been embellished too much and in fact, fabricated, forget about the arguments as to how good England were, Ireland Republic defeated England within a year prior to this match 2-0 in what I believe was the first time a foreign team won on English soil (fellow United Kingdom teams Wales and Scotland, the latter doing so with regularity, had managed to defeat England in England a number of times) so England were not invincible and forget about our USA team losing to Chile and Spain (we actually led Spain in our 1st game, 1-0 with 10 minutes to go and ended up losing 3-1, so we must not have been pushovers) in that World Cup in regards to this single game, I believe the story line is still true and that this is one of the greatest upsets of all time since the US was such a backwater soccer/football nation. When Cameroon defeated reigning World Cup champion Argentina in 1990, Cameroon was still a nation where soccer is a primary sport. The same can be said about the handful of other examples that can be used for similar upsets, Algeria vs. West Germany, North Korea vs. Italy, Senegal vs. France, etc.. The US team that defeated England in 1950 had results like these in the immediate years prior: Mexico 5 USA 0, Cuba 5 USA 2, Norway 11 USA 0 ( ref: elo ratings web pages) and finally, in September of 1949, we defeated Cuba 5-2: so we were far from being formidable competition on the world stage. This is what made the victory so staggering, it was so unexpected, so out of the blue. A modern day comparison might be say, if we saw Canada, no offense meant, defeat someone like Holland in the World Cup, it would be shocking though in fairness, I do believe the Canadians often hold their own alright in playing our National team.
Yet, I believe the producers and writers of the screenplay play a bit too fast and loose with the original story. The book seems even-handed in telling about all of the players, this movie is largely about the St. Louis based players, 4 in total of the team and certainly does merit mention and probably being central to the story but possibly not at the total expense of other team members of which some, there is close to nil. Additionally, I would agree with some reviewers who would say the English team are made to be somewhat villains in this movie, perhaps upper class snootish snobbish types, heck, they almost seem cut out of the same cloth as that Russian Rocky Balboa boxed in that one movie, Ivan Drago. The truth is back in those days, an English footballer received relatively low wages compared to today, some pay packets only a bit higher than those earned by factory workers. I don't want to give away any of the plot element and after all, we know of the final outcome here, but from my reading, some facts don't mesh with the movies version. The famed soccer star Sir Stanley Matthews doesn't play against the USA because in the movie he's taking a "holiday" in Rio, by the way, the first chapter of the book states Sir Stan was sitting out the USA game because he was seen "limping briefly" in the days before the USA/England match. The truth of the matter is, is Sir Stan wasn't picked to play in this game from his own voluminous autobiographyThe Way It Was: My Autobiography. England had won its 3 preceding games without Stanley Matthews so the basic team was not changed at all as they thought it was good enough and there were no substitutes back then. Matthews was at the game watching as part of the reserves team for England. I'd also scrutinize the portrayal of Haitian Joe Gaetjens. Finding other inconsistencies, I can't help but feel much of the narrative here does not reflect the reality of the original game though, the movie does bring out a possible truth that Gaetjens, our goal scorer may have felt a bit at home in Brazil and in the mannerisms of that country, not a bad angle. Lastly, the St. Louis guys seem to spend a good amount of time in the bar as well, okay, I guess one can take some creative license there but it does make me wonder if they spent time sipping brews in this manner.
Stanley Mortensen who was half-Norweigan by the way, one player on the English National team is portrayed making an arrogant speech at a joint dinner banquet with the English and American teams attending, the speech is a somewhat anti-American speech and incendiary, "Gloves" walks out of the speech. I searched the book but this is not in there. What is the source of this speech?? Stanley Mortensen in fact served on a RAF fighter plane that went down during World War II, he was the only one to survive. Injuries he sustained in that crash were thought to be so serious as to end his soccer career altogether but he came back. Is this the one who made that speech at that banquet?? Also, it would seem highly unlikely to see Mortensen's talking about cricket and also, disparage baseball when in fact, baseball is much like the sport "rounders" played in the United Kingdom (for better or worst, the author of Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game (Sporting) goes so far as to say it originated over there). Revising the story does not truly honor this original team whose great accomplishment speaks for itself. The whole scenario I believe is fundamentally changed.
If one is fictionalizing the story, what is to keep one from say, supposing the Italian referee sided with the American team which had some Italian-heritage players like Pariani and Borghi? I doubt if a screen writer named Angelo Pizzo would see it in that manner but why not at least, seek the truth? Tom Finney who played for England that day writes that two obvious penalties for England were waved off, furthermore, in the two previous years, England had marked up 2-0 and 4-0 victories against Italy. So, certainly, there is a need to be honest.
To use a comparison, a recently well made sports movie in my opinion is 'The Express, the Ernie Davis story' which claims it is "inspired by real events" on the dvd case and even carries a disclaimer at the end concerning the events portrayed in a game purported to take place in West Virginia which it says are fictitious. While the verdict is out, 'Express' seems to still be a fair historical appraisal of that era. 'The miracle match' movie also called 'The game of their lives' is a two or three star movie because while the acting and filming is very good, not a bad story-line except it seemingly, has little to do with historical accuracy and, though you might say "everyone does it", it could even be construed as malicious and possibly defamatory.
Description of The Miracle Match
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.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
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