The Miracle Match (2005)

 The Miracle Match
..."The Miracle Match" is another Gerard Butler film that i purchased in order to get a closer look at this amazing actor's theatrical range--i was quite please...very credible acting on all who participated in this film--i just couldnt get into the actor that played Patrick Stewart's part as a younger man...but other than that,the performances were natural and a compliment to the men being portrayed...and although there were other "big name" actors in this film, everyone is on the same page in making the viewer believe this larger than life piece of sport history...there wasnt a whole lot of unnecessary "lets just focus on this one or that one", just a simple formula of how a group of friends beat the odds of being labled not good enough...and that my friend, was good enough for me... December 29, 2007

 World Cup Saga
As a Brazilian I was surprised and delighted with the film. In countries that have a strong football (soccer) tradition and world cup participation, the stories and the successes of their national teams in that championship are ingrained in the national psychic and are the stuff of legend. Aside the many documentary films, movies about world cup stories are rare (although some have the world cup as part of the background, like the new brazilian film "Quando meus pais sairam de férias", which depicts the political repression of the military regime and the 1970 World Cup). To my knowledge there are only two, both with the word miracle and set in the 1950's. The Miracle Match depicts the U.S miracle in the 1950 World Cup and Das Wunder Von Bern (The Miracle of Bern) the german one in the 1954 World Cup. The german film made in 2004 is far superior to the american one and also displays a rare glimpse of post WWII german life and hardship. For me the american film was a complete surprise (americans making an epic film about a word cup event!). Of course the event of the famous and humiliating defeat of the English Team at the hands of the U.S soccer team was already know to me. The fact is that the english generaly think that they are better than they really are, they make a fuss about themselves, and while respected and sometimes feared, they rarely match the 4 greats (Brazil, Germany, Italy and Argentina). The 1950 match against the U.S was the eye opener and from there, with the exeption of 1966, it was, as the London Times once put it, one "glorious" failure after another.
Although the match took place in Belo Horizonte (which by the way is not a "mining town" as described in a review, but the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, which during the 17th'century and up to the middle of the 18th' century, was an important gold mining region) the scenes in brazil are filmed in Rio de Janeiro. The stadion used to film the match itself, is the stadion of the Fluminense Football Club, possibly one of the oldest in Brazil, built in the beggining of the 20th'century (it is funny to see in the film apartment buildings next to the stadion that were only built 10-20 years after the event). The huge Maracana stadion was built specially for the 1950 World Cup and was the scene of the final match of that championship.
As an aside; if ever a brazilian director decides to make a film like this one, as far as drama is concerned, the best choice would be this 1950 Word Cup, but instead of miracle the word to be used would be trauma or shock. As far as brazilian teams go, the 1950 one was great, alongside the world champions of 1958 and 1970, together with the other defeated one of 1982, and superior to the world champions of 1962, 1994 and 2002. The loss of the final match to Uruguai in front of 200,000 spectators, for much of the same reasons that England lost to the U.S, ranks as the worst sport disaster in the history of Brazil. October 20, 2007

 Soccer Serendipity
Beautiful film; wish it was longer as it was a fact base story, there could have been more...but what was given did not cut short of the heartfelt and uplifting mood of this movie. The actors were wonderful; the period made lovely; the sport, very ambitious action! Spin-off stories could and should be looked into, esp for Frank Borghi, Joe Gaetjens, Walter Bahr, Gino Pariani, Pee Wee Wallace, Stanley Mortensen, even Harry Keough...they all seemed to have so much more to contribute. I couldn't be a "Soccer Mom" and coach without them today! September 25, 2007

 Review of "The Miracle Match"
We enjoyed this video because it is based on a little known but true historical event and doesn't contain offensive material. It is especially good if you like soccer as we do.
We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
August 14, 2007

 AWESOME and INSPIRATIONAL
This is an amazing and very moving film - sadly it got very little on screen theatre time! And it took me MONTHS to find it on dvd - and Im extremely glad to have it in my collection! This is an A+ movie with NO reservations about it! The cast is excellent and the story will bring you to tears!!!!! this is a MUST OWN DVD! AAAA++++ July 3, 2007

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