The worst football films ever
It’s very rare to dislike a football film if you’re a football fan. In truth, it’s an impressive achievement for any filmmaker to make that happen.
And while it may pain us to switch off a film that even features a leather sphere, a select few have managed to make football films so bad that there’s no other option – for every Goal!, you can dig out a Goal! II.
Here, 90min have ranked some of the worst football films ever created.
Please bear in mind that this list is based on opinion although, unlike our list of best football films, if you’re not expecting to find Green Street on it…come on.
It’s not terrible enough to go anywhere near basement spot, however.
In fairness, Green Street is actually fairly enjoyable to watch, but mostly because of poor acting, over-dramatization and that rendition of I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.
As we’re taken on the journey of a naive journalism major’s emersion into the West Ham firm (sort of), all we really learn from the film is that Elijah Wood can’t act hard, Charlie Hunnam sounds Danish when putting on an east-end accent and that it’s incredibly easy to romanticise football hooliganism.
So, while it’ll always be a guilty pleasure, there’s no other place for Green Street than on the worst-ever football films‘ list.
Talking of guilty pleasures, Mike Bassett: England Manager could quite conceivably be dragged onto the list of best football films ever made.
The classic spoof-mockumentary’s plot, however, surrounds the reign of Mike Bassett (played by Ricky Tomlinson) as Three Lions boss and his journey to taking the nation to a World Cup semi-final via a litany of gags you might find your dad saying and inside jokes that, if you’re not a football fan, you’ll probably be left bemused at.
Even with immortalised jokes such as the one involving two Third Division strikers and a packet of Benson and Hedges cigarettes, the cheap caricature-littered Mike Bassett: England Manager has to find itself on this list.
Vinnie Jones has proven to be just as terrifying on-screen as he was on-field but, after early performances in the likes of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, the 2001 film Mean Machine was a bit disappointing.
Playing disgraced international footballer Danny Meehan, Vinnie finds himself in prison following a conviction for attacking two police officers as well as drink-driving. Up against some utterly detestable prison staff, Meehan sets up a team of inmates to play their supervisors but is met with hostility due to his checkered past, having fixed a match against Germany.
Over the course of the film, friendships develop, unity forms and action ensues before Meehan’s team of cons winds up victorious courtesy of a last-gasp goal by the very scrawny-looking Billy the Limpet, played by Danny Dyer (of course).
A satisfying end (with Meehan refusing a deal offered by the prison’s hierarchy and therefore keeping his integrity) doesn’t detract from the fact that Mean Machine is packed with cliches and a fairly feeble story, however.
It was eventually remade into The Longest Yard starring Adam Sandler which, you won’t be surprised to hear, is most certainly a worse film.
I think I got Goal III free with a Match magazine, still felt ripped off and never watched it again. Even as a kid who loved the first two, I knew I’d never see a worse film!
— Jake Bayliss (@JBayliss94) May 25, 2020
One third of the Goal! trilogy is superb; 66.6% of it, however, is utter drivel.
Following up a classic – which features on our list of best football films – the two sequels to Goal! continue to follow the journey of Santiago Munez (portrayed by Kuno Becker) after he enshrines himself into Newcastle United legend in the original flick.
Living the Dream focuses on Santi’s move to Real Madrid and his subsequent (very predictable and banal) rise to Los Blancos stardom – in all fairness, the film title is an honest description of the story.
All we can say is, thank goodness Taking on the World is where it stopped.
In the final instalment of the Goal! trilogy, the deterioration of the gritty underdog tale it was so easy to get invested in is even further apparent – in truth, it’s an evident attempt at milking even more cash from a story that should have quite clearly been finished halfway through the second film.
Sean Bean in When Saturday Comes (1996) pic.twitter.com/PDHVcEFRjx
— Frame Found (@framefound) August 31, 2022
While we’re on the subject of stories that aren’t really there, When Saturday Comes tells the tale of a booze-loving wasted talent working in a Yorkshire brewery, who eventually gets scouted by Sheffield United.
Nice story, right?
Well, yes. The problem, however, is that this character – who gets his footballing career and life back on track after several wasted years – is played by the famously subdued and melancholic Sean Bean in his late 30s (so he looks 50). He struggles to play the part of a reinvigorated baller who’s been given another shot at his dream and doesn’t shout the word ‚ba***rd‘ every five minutes.
At least the accent was on point.
Director John Forte wrote Mad About Mambo for its release in 2000; he’s not gone near a feature film since – that should tell you all you need to know about Mad About Mambo.
The story centres around Danny (played by Waterloo Road favourite William Ash), a Catholic boy who takes up dance to better his football skills in the hope of winning over his Protestant love interest who’s dating a player from a rival team.
Yeah, the film is as appalling as it sounds – so is William Ash’s footballing ability.
Now this is truly woeful – even if it co-stars everyone’s favourite incompetent law enforcement officer Channing Tatum.
She’s the Man is really nothing more than would be entertainment to a 10-year-old sitting in front of CBBC – or Disney Channel for the lucky ones – on a Sunday morning.
A classic American teen drama, the film is packed with over-pronounced expressions and dreadfully delivered lines as it takes us on the journey of Amanda Bynes‘ character Viola – a journey that sees her disguise herself in her desperation to play in the boys‘ football team.
The predictability of the subsequent struggles and romantic complications over a 105-minute period – that feels like an eternity, it must be said – is almost laughable. What makes the movie even worse and places it firmly at the bottom of the list is that it’s an almost insulting adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night – oh, dear.