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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 8879
Released: September 12, 2006 |
| Our Price: $9.03 |
| Used Price: $6.95 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
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.
Description of The Miracle Match:
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
The Miracle Match Reviews:
USA win in 1950 was a great accomplishment in itself; it did not need to be embellished upon. 
2009-12-13 - 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. I don't believe 'Goal' or some other movies are as good. Maybe only the Stallone/Caine/Pele/Ardiles movie "Victory" matches up as favorably for real action scenes.
Factually, I believe it has been embellished too much, forget about the arguments as to how good England were, Ireland 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 (not to confuse this with games versus fellow UK countries like Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, I know the Scots at least, did defeat England in England) so England were not invincible and forget about our losses to Chile and Spain 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. The US team that defeated England in 1950 had results like these in the 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 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 similar to 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 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 "limping briefly" in the preceding game vs. Chile. The truth of the matter is, is Sir Stan at 35 years old wasn't picked to play in this game from his own voluminous autobiographyThe Way It Was: My Autobiography. Finding other inconsistencies, I can't help but feel much of the narrative here does not reflect the reality of the original game.
Stanley Mortensen, 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 was in fact, serving on a RAF fighter plane shot down during World War II, he was the only one to survive. Injuries he sustained in that crash were thought to threaten his soccer career. Is this the one who made that speech at that banquet?? Revising the story does not truly honor this original team whose great accomplishment speaks for itself.
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, 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. So, certainly, there is a need to be honest. I'm not sure if this movie should even be docked one more star.
Not for the soccer enthusiast 
2009-10-09 - I play, loved, and breath soccer everyday. And I can tell you that this movie is going to disappoint a lot of soccer enthusiasts or players. There's very little glimpse of talent and I saw a lot of the scenes being repeated, but the story line was quite good though there is nothing out of the ordinary. The movie is pretty much an inspirational story about a sports team that had their differences, overcame the differences, and beat the best soccer team in the world, England. The only setback is that the movie was unrealistic. Why? It all went down to the skills that's being shown in the movie. There are plenty of slow motions to make the movement smooth and makes it look like a great pass and what not. But deep down inside I know that I can do better than these guys.
Great Soccer Movie - great 50's feel 
2009-08-11 - This is one of the better soccer movies I've seen. It has great soccer footage, drama, humor, and conflict. The story is an account of one of the highlight games of the 1950 World Cup, and it also shows the weeks leading up to that game as the underdog US players prepare for it.
This movie does a great job of establishing the feel of the 1950's (...at least how I imagine it to be). Most of the soccer game footage is well filmed. Even though the movie is an ensemble piece, the individual characters are quickly developed. It's fun to see Gerard Butler (before he was a major star) as the US goalkeeper. Real footage from the 2004 MLS All-star game shows some of those real-life team members 54 years later. And watch out for former US Pro Player John Harkes - he has a small supporting role in the movie!
Great transaction
2009-07-04 - The DVD arrived promptly and as described. Smooth transaction. Would not hesitate to buy again!
This film is a joke! 
2008-11-17 - This movie is sooo ridiculous! It's interesting to note that only the game
the U.S. was able to win at that 1950 World Cup is the main focus of the
film. The accomplishment of the United States is much less fantastic if
it's taken into account that the U.S. lost the rest of their matches after
getting lucky enough to defeat England in that one game. After defeating England, the U.S. still was eliminated in the first round of that World Cup. And Joe Gaetjens, the man who scored the only goal for the U.S. in that game, wasn't even an American citizen!
