10 football films to get you in the mood for kick off

When many people think of films about ‘The Beautiful Game’, a few, (mainly mediocre) movies tend to spring to mind, usually headed by John Huston’s 1981 folie de grandeur Escape to Victory.

As you may recall, the film cast Sly Stallone, a noticeably chubby Michael Caine, Max Von Sydow and real-life football legends Pelé, Osvaldo ‘Ozzy’ Ardiles and Bobby Moore in a ‘soccer’ themed homage to The Great Escape (1963).

But there are a surprising variety of other motion pictures about the sport and some are well worth checking out.

Of course, there are some real stinkers as well, most recently the Sky Cinema Original Final Score (2018), a lame attempt to repurpose Die Hard in the environs of West Ham’s London Stadium.The previous year George Best’s son Calum starred in the risible footie thriller Dangerous Game, rated by some as the ‘worst football film of all time’.

And don’t forget 2014’s crummy United Passions, where Tim Roth starred as Sepp Blatter in a FIFA-funded whitewash about the founding of the organisation. Roth