Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2652 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-03-06
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, Bulgarian, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
• Dubbed in: French, Italian, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 118 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Within a matter of minutes, you know how this one’s going to play out. Goal tells the tale of Santiago Nunez, a Mexican living in Los Angeles. His family are poor, his father has ideas for what he wants him to do, and yet he has an incredible football talent. So when a British scout sees him play, and cobbles together a trial for him at Newcastle United, he has to choose between his father’s plans and the chance to play football thousands of miles away.

It wouldn’t be much of a film if he chose the former, and truthfully, you’ll not find too many surprises where Goal is concerned. It sticks fairly rigidly to the sporting movie template that’s been set down since the days of Rocky, and, given that this is the first in a trilogy, it’s hardly surprising that it doesn’t take too many risks.

And yet, as a piece of entertainment, it works absolutely fine. From the suitably convincing football action, the inevitable distractions of a footballer’s life and unintentionally hilarious cameos from the likes of David Beckham, Goal is fun, pure and simple. The trailer for the sequel, included on the DVD, promises even more of the same. Bring it on…--Simon Brew

DVD Description
Santiago Munez is a poor Mexican-American immigrant who seems destined to follow his father into menial jobs to support the family. But with his exceptional talent for soccer, Santiago is given the chance of a lifetime to live his dream and make it as a professional footballer. This means leaving his family, his life and everything he knows in Los Angeles to travel halfway around the world to England for a trial with top club, Newcastle United. Alone in the exciting, glamorous and completely foreign world of professional football, Santiago must choose between his father's fate and his own destiny to prove he has the talent and determination to play amongst the best.

With some of the worlds biggest footballing stars on show, including England captain David Beckham, Spanish superstar Raul and former world player of the year Zinedine Zidane, Goal! provides the most exciting and authentic football action ever to be seen on film. An ideal gift for anyone in love with the beautiful game, Goal! arrives packed full of goalmouth action, comedy, camaraderie and unmissable extras. If you share Shankley's view that football is more important than life or death, then don't miss out on Goal!, the greatest football film ever.

Special Features
• Behind The Pitch • The Beautiful Game • Audio Commentary - feature length • Happy Mondays Music Video: "Playground Superstar" • Munez +10 • Golden Moments of the FIFA World Cup • 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany • Goal II Trailer

Customer Reviews

Best Footy Flick ever?
This is a 3 star film really, football fans add 1 star, Geordies add 2 stars.(Im a Geordie)Probably the best film ever made about football, but to be fair there isnt much competion. The story follows a young Mexican footballer living in poverty in Los Angeles, who is discovered by an ex football scout and given a trial for Newcastle United.

Filmed mostly in the North East, Newcastle films brilliantly, with excellent panaramic sweeps of the city.

New boy Kuno Becker takes the lead and gives quite a moving if some what schmaltsy performance, while Anna Friel plays the love interest with quite an impressive Geordie accent and Alan Shearer manages his line!

The film is very American at times, but this doesnt detract from the fairly fast pace too much. The football scenes are well mixed with live action and there are several cameos including Beckham, Raul, Zidane and Brian Johnson from AC/DC. The sondtrack is excellent featuring some classic Brit pop anthems.

All in all this is very entertaining and well recommended.

Much better than I thought it would be
I wasn't expecting a great deal from "Goal!"; the title sounds a bit naff and the football movie hardly has a glittering and proud heritage. Actually when you look at it there haven't actually been too many films about the great game itself; "Bend It Like Beckham" was really a romantic comedy, "Green Street", "Football Factory", "ID", The Firm" about hooligans and the likes of "Shaolin Soccer" and "Escape to Victory" more parodies of other genres. So, probably "Goal" can only be compared to two films that I can think of, the execrable "When Saturday Comes" and the brilliant "There's Only One Jimmy Grimble" - happily "Goal" is almost as much a success as the latter. The film treads familiar turf; a genius without a penny is discovered by a mentor with something to prove and everything ends up rosy, fortunately the road to rosy is pretty well realised and surprisingly enthralling with good performances almost wherever you look (except Sean Pertwee - oh gawd why?!!). It helps that there is some realism injected into the proceedings with a Premiership club involved in making of the film (the fictional success here must taste slightly unreal to the average Newcastle United fan) and a host of genuine Galactacos giving slightly embarrassed cameos (Zidane, Raul, a weirdly plastic looking Beckham and the 2004/5 Newcastle squad). Other positives include a bouncing rocky soundtrack (Oasis feature heavily) and a snappy, humorous script. The only criticism I have is the ending; things get a bit rushed in the last 15 minutes and as a result too many loose ends are tied up either unnecessarily or in an excruciatingly sentimental way, a shame because until then I was well impressed. Apparently "Goal 2: Living The Dream" is imminent and will feature Santiago Nunez transferring to Real Madrid, so more plastic fantastic from Becks, Excellent! Presumably the third film in the trilogy will feature Nunez weighing up whether to play for USA or Mexico, before going on to win the World Cup with one. Fingers crossed its Mekiko. Can't wait.

It Shoots, It Scores..... Much to my Surprise!
Critics delivered early sights of 'Goal' by hailing it as the 'Rocky' of football (or soccer for those states based commentators!).

I have to say that 'Goal' is by no means an on the pitch reflection of boxing saga 'Rocky'. But the film, however, delivers a plentiful punch in it's portrayal of a young man who longs to pursue his dream to become a world class football player.

Story: The story centres around a young man in Brazil who longs to chase the dream of every youngling and run onto the turf rubbing shin pads with soccer heroes and lead his team to victory. His life, however, is entangled in poverty and strict family vaules and so the thought of playing football at even a semi-pro level is in it's simplest form only a dream. Everything changes though when a former scout for Newcastle United shows up to watch a game and realises that this young man may have more to offer than simple kick-a-bouts with pals in Brazil.

Pros: As a Newcastle dweller, it is awe injecting to see how the filmakers have captured the beauty of the North East and based their entire story around Newcastle United and the football injuiced passion that embraces so many people in this city. Even if you've only visited Newcastle or fancy paying it a visit - this film will highlight the fact that Newcastle upon Tyne remains one of the UK's greatest cities to the eye. The whole filmography is well placed together, and compliments a great story of two worlds in the life of the young rising Newcastle player.

Cons: The film, though moving in moments, at times falls prey to the genre and juxtaposition that is only known as 'cheese'. And, sadly at times the acting seems to be pushed to it's limits when the story's actors are delivering more emotion than decent or sound dialouge. That said; the film is fronted with a league of actors who seem to lead the film to the glory it deserves by the final scenes. Some of the stars of St James' Park also make a appearence.

Best Bit: Alan Shearer's moment of humour in the fitness suite is worthy of a laugh. A definitive moment of comedy, even if you're a fan of soccer and Shearer or not.

Worst Bit: David Beckham tries to deliver a few words of the script in a night club to the newly raised Newcastle Star - but his ability to do so reminded me that neither him nor his wife were cut out for such roles (do you remember Spice the Movie?).