Goal! The Dream Begins (2005) on Netflix
PG-1320051h 58mAdventureDramaRomanceSport
Santiago Muñez, an undocumented Mexican immigrant in Los Angeles, plays football for a local team. Glen Foy, a former Newcastle United player, arranges a trial for him with the club.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.7/1069,352 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes42%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Los Angeles, Santiago Muñez lives as an undocumented Mexican immigrant and plays football for a local team, earning money gardening with his father, Hernan, plus a job as a busboy in a Chinese restaurant. Glen Foy, a former Newcastle United player and scout, approaches him at one of his matches and arranges a trial with the club. Hernan has no faith in it and takes Santiago's savings to buy a truck, so Santiago's grandmother, Mercedes, secretly gives him money and urges him to leave for England. In Newcastle he stays with Glen and trains, where teammate Hughie McGowan makes things difficult and the manager, Erik Dornhelm, agrees the trial can last a month.
Cast
- Alfredo Rodríguezas Julio
- Kevin Knapmanas Jamie Drew
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Goal! The Dream Begins (2005)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Adidas contributed a reported $50 million towards the film's budget and marketing campaign, marking the then-biggest deal between a corporate brand and a film production.
- Diego Luna was originally to play the lead but left to pursue other projects and was replaced by Kuno Becker, while Michael Winterbottom was slated to direct before creative differences saw him replaced by Danny Cannon.
- The film scored moderately at the box office with $27.6 million in cinemas, but huge DVD sales made it the gold standard for sports films in the UK, many European territories and South America.
- In 2021 Newcastle signed a Mexican-American striker named Santiago Muñoz, a coincidence noted at the time for its remarkable similarity to the film.
- The soundtrack, released on the Oasis label Big Brother Recordings in 2005, holds three Oasis songs unavailable elsewhere, including the exclusive Noel Gallagher song "Who Put the Weight of the World on My Shoulders?" and a re-recorded "Cast No Shadow" with Gallagher on vocals.
- Goal! was made with co-operation from FIFA, which enabled the inclusion of FIFPro likenesses of real teams and players in the film.
- Adidas put a reported $50 million into Goal!'s budget and marketing campaign, which at the time was the biggest deal ever between a corporate brand and a film production.
- In 2021 Newcastle United signed a Mexican-American striker named Santiago Muñoz, noting the remarkable similarity to the film's fictional hero Santiago Muñez.
