Excellent but underrated film

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This movie sees Santiago getting transferred to Real Madrid at the start of the new season. The celebrity life goes to his head, and he is 'caught' with a beautiful lady (hints of the Beckham-Loos scandal?). He also has to come to terms with injury, and with his mother and her new life.This movie had some good material with which to give Santiago's story some depth. But it is appallingly executed.Firstly, Santiago gets transferred to Real Madrid and given a key role in their team (coming on as a sub, then earning a starting place) immediately. This is after just three first team appearances for Newcastle United. Villa took until he was 28 to get signed to Real. Beckham was of a similar age and struggled to make the first team on a regular basis. But Santi is fast-tracked. In a team that counts the likes of Zidane and Raul among their regular players? !? After three games for a so-so Premiership team?!? It's ridiculous and totally unbelievable.Also, Gavin Harris is already at Real. Ignoring the simple and pertinent question "why would Real buy a player who was rubbish even when he was at Newcastle?" it seems implausible that they would follow up their purchase of Harris (who spends most of his Real time underperforming) by buying a similarly untested player in Santiago from the same team.We can overlook the coincidence that Snti's mother now lives in Spain, the country he's just moved to. But the kid brother of Santi acts like a total brat and the only proof he has that Santi is his brother is one photograph. There's no reason for Santi to pursue a relationship with him and no struggle involved in Santi deciding to do so. When they eventually are "united" there is no character development involved. They're just suddenly a happy family together. Once again, Santi falls prey to the celebrity culture surrounding football. While you could forgive the character for this in the first movie as he seemed innocent and overwhelmed, by the second movie he starts to just look like an idiot. He makes the same mistakes all over again and doesn't seem to have learned from his past experiences at all. The character arc suggests that if there is a third instalment, he'll be a total Ronaldo-style prima dona. The plot is very weak, overall. This might be forgivable were it an excuse to put football on the big screen - if the football was the focus. But it clearly isn't. The goals are clearly CGI'd and fake looking, and the games aren't shown to have any flow. Teams get lucky with final minute goals, but not every game with the same player being responsible every time. Yet, this movie thinks that is acceptable.The new manager was very stiff and barely made any impact upon the flow of the movie. This was an opportunity missed, in my opinion. An interesting movie could have been forged from the torn loyalties players might have when moving clubs and working under a new manager - return games at their old club, being forced to play in a different position or style of play, etc. But this was completely overlooked.In summary, this movie seemed to want to retread the ground covered in the first movie, while incorporating too many sub-plots. Overall, it felt like nothing was dealt with thoroughly, and the plot felt forced and confused - it felt like those involved couldn't decide what they wanted the movie to be about. Too formulaic, it came off as a "let's do a sequel because football's popular" kind of movie, instead of being a strong development of the areas hinted at in the first movie.I'd recommend watching a full Accrington Stanley game over watching this movie. That's how bad it was.

Just watched Goal 2 and must say it was fairly predictable in all areas of the movie. Although somewhat entertaining with some good football created by some world class footballers, the story doesn't really turn any interesting corners. When you link it up with Goal, it begins with a talented player who makes good with Newcastle and finally becomes a star with some interesting scenes thrown in. In Goal 2 the obvious occurs, star player goes to a bigger club, gets caught up in the good life, loses his girl, gets injured, works hard and comes back to please everyone. Would I recommend this Movie? Yes and No.... The football is not bad and its interesting to see Beckam and company strut their stuff off and on the field but you would have thought they would have come up with a better storyline rather than churn out the same old stuff.By the way, you don't see too many movies finish with a "to be continued" Scary stuff!

Problem with these 2 'Goal' football (yes Americans, the game is called FOOTBALL not soccer) movies is that they are blatantly ridiculous. And actually -a fact that no one seems to notice- there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in football's REAL LIFE -more interesting i'd say, then in these stupid 'goal'-movies where the hero goes from illegal immigrant to winning the champions league in approximately one (1) year. That's the level of a ten year old, i'd say, or as i may add, of an American audience that for some strange reason never seems to get bored by the same old storyline in a different movie. Let's throw in a car chase, let's throw in some kissing, let's throw in some celebs ,oh yeah, some unrealistic football action before we forget, and ready is our SOCCER movie. That's the biggest problem. Hollywood doing a football film will NEVER NEVER work. Any volunteers from other sides of the world?

As far as movies go, this is an entirely predictable movie but its pretty decent. If you want a nice Sunday film where you don't have to think, its ideal. The football bits are quite good, the cameos are great and the story is reasonably engaging. Im not saying its brilliant by any means but I don't think it deserves the negative comments its had. Its a good fun football film that any sports fan will enjoy - and fair play for ending on a cliffhanger. Becker is a charming lead and Friel pulls of a reasonably genuine Geordie accent. If you want a sports movie with a bit of heart, fluff, action and a bit of glamour, you won't be disappointed.