(Victory, Italian-style… )
CAST: Narrated by Pierce Brosnan. Also with: Fabio Cannavaro, Marco Materazzi, Gianluigi Buffon, Fabio Grosso, and a bunch of other awesome Italian football players. Oh, and the teams of Germany, France, Argentina, Portugal, United States, Ghana, and many, many others…
DIRECTOR: Michael Apted, Pat O’Connor, and Daniel Villar.
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and sublime soccer goals - not to mention some talented Eye-Talian players - straight ahead…
When I was watching our last Soccer/Football Flick review, MEAN MACHINE (review # 288), I kept finding myself getting a little impatient. You see, MEAN MACHINE is about a British ex-football star played by Vinnie Jones who gets thrown into the slammer after drunkenly assaulting some police officers. The rest of the film chronicles how he ends up being the reluctant coach of the prison soccer team.
Which is all fine and dandy, but it takes nearly a fucking hour for anyone to even so much as kick a goddamned ball. Nope, the first half of the film is about the various politics and quirks of the prisoners and prison life. All somewhat interesting, but if I wanted to watch “a slice of life” behind bars, I would have asked my DVD Pimp for a copy of OZ’s first season. Let me be clear about this: when I watch a Soccer Flick, I… want… soccer… ACTION! And by the time I finally got it in MEAN MACHINE, I was almost wondering if I was actually watching a Soccer Flick.
Thank goodness, then, for Soccer Documentaries. Unlike feature films that revolve around Soccer, documentaries on the sport don’t fuck around with such storytelling requirements as set-up, character introductions, character development, plot complications, love sub-plot, second-act turning point, third-act crisis, etc. These movies just drop you right in the middle of the action. And it’s awesome. It’s like meeting someone at a party - and dropping the coy banter and cutting right to the sweaty sex.
You can’t get much better than a documentary of the FIFA World Cup tournament. And from that pool, you can’t get much better than the 2006 extravaganza, which saw Bella Italia claiming the Cup for the fourth time in history (the first three were in 1934, 1938, and 1982). The road to that victory, however, would be as serpentine as any action movie - complete with surprises, reversals, betrayals, saves, touching sacrifices, and last-minute plot twists. The only thing missing are the sweaty sex scenes. But who knows what happened in the locker room?
I’ve always thought of the World Cup as kind of like that flick HIGHLANDER. If you’ll recall, HIGHLANDER is about a bunch of immortals who are forever fated to kill each other off through the centuries until only one of them is left standing - the victor. “There can only be ONE!” is their battle cry, before lopping off an opponent’s head. Same concept for the World Cup: you’ve got teams from all over the world bitch-slapping each other on the field for one purpose, and one purpose only: to have the privilege of wearing the World Cup trophy over their heads at the victory kegger. You know it’s been done. Or as the immortals in HIGHLANDER would say: “There can only be ONE!”
The first part of the World Cup 2006, like any of the other tournaments, deals with the teams systematically thinning each other’s herds until only eight teams remain for that lovely round of blood-letting called the “Quarter-Finals”. Those eight are: Germany, Italy, France, England, Ukraine, Argentina, Brazil, and Portugal. For those unfamiliar with soccer, the Quarter-Finals is kind of like the finale of the Miss Universe pageant: you’re left with a handful of hotties (or groups of hotties) ready to bludgeon each other for the honor of being the one (or ones) to wake up the next morning, hung over but somehow also feeling awesome.
So, after more brutal bouts of offside traps, fouls, goals, bicycle kicks, and pulled groins, our list of HIGHLANDERS, er, contenders gets whittled down to four: Germany, France, Portugal, and Italy. After more rounds of flying fur, we’re into the Finals - and two teams left to duke it out: France and Italy. If you thought the battle was heated before, wait until you see the shit that goes down during this final round. Especially when French team captain Zinedine Zidane headbutts Italian defender Marco Materazzi right in 110th minute of the final game for insulting his sister - resulting in that most dreaded of soccer fouls: a red card followed by a send-off. Bye-bye, Zidane.
Who will win the final? Will superstar Zidane’s benching hurt France’s chances of winning? Will Fabio Cannavaro, Marco Materazzi, Gianluigi Buffon, and Fabio Grosso lead their Italian fratellos and trounce the Frenchies? Or does France have a secret weapon? Or will--
Oh, who am I fucking kidding… we all know Italy won 5-3 with a penalty kick by Fabio Grosso. This was just the second time in the history of the World Cup that the final match was decided with a penalty kick. Bet ol’ Zidane is wishing he’d kept his temper, eh? Maybe Materazzi knew what he was doing, after all. That wily Italian…
BUT, SERIOUSLY: As we’ve discussed in THE GAME OF THEIR LIVES (review # 186), we discussed how intrinsic soccer/football is to the Italian character. THE GAME OF THEIR LIVES revolved around the true story of Italian-Americans in St. Louis who rode a wave to the 1950 World Cup tournament in Brazil - where they resoundingly defeated the British team. Ultimately, the American team and its Italian-American players didn’t make it even into the Quarter Finals, but the fact that they triumphed over the UK team was a remarkable accomplishment.
Flash forward 56 years later to 2006, and we find another group of Italians (albeit, not American ones) who ride the wave all the way to the finals to actually nab the honor of World Cup champions. While the tournament is filled with drama and gripping moments, nothing is more compelling than the final game between France and Italy, which ultimately came down to a series of penalty shots to decide the game. The controversial head-butt unleashed by French captain Zinedine Zidane on Italian defender Marco Materazzi is believed by some to have cost France the cup. I personally believe the Italians would have won it anyway - with or without Zidane present to defend France.
Whether or not Zidane’s red card send-off contributed to his team’s loss is irrelevant. This, in addition to the victory being decided by penalty kicks, just added to the finale’s tension and unique feel. Only once before in World Cup history had the win been decided by penalty kicks. No one is going to forget this particular standoff anytime soon. I remember watching the finale in 2006 on TV and thnking: “Wow. Now that’s a climactic soccer match…” Let’s hope the World Cup 2014 will be replete with such dramatic and compelling moments.
In the end, the FIFA World Cup 2006 movie beautifully captures the adrenalin and passion not only of the sport, but of the people all over the world who follow it with such fervor. Especially the Italians who, for the fourth time in World Cup history, took the trophy home with pride to Bella Italia…
