The movie “Coach”: you just can’t make a better movie about Russian soccer

– Soccer, Yura, is scorched earth covered with a three-meter layer of shit, – the words of the mayor of a southern city stick in my memory after watching the trailer.

What associations do ordinary people have with the term “Russian soccer” today? Crazy fans, huge salaries of players and disgusting performance of the national team. In the movie “Coach” all these problems are raised, just too positively shown. It makes you lose a little sense of reality.

Watch it on the official iVideos channel on YouTube.

Kozlowski’s debut

– Soccer is my favorite sport,” director Danila Kozlovsky said before the premiere. – I’m one of those guys who fought on the yard in shabby sneakers and with an old ball. I really wanted to play the role of a coach in the movie. Initially, I was not going to make a movie about soccer, it was a production project. My task was to find a director and play the main role in the movie. When I developed a synopsis, when the plot appeared in my head, I realized that I could shoot everything myself.

“Coach ” – the directorial debut of one of the most popular actors in Russia Danila Kozlovsky. In addition, he became a screenwriter and producer of the picture, and also played the main role in it. “Coach” is a sports drama about soccer, which is released a few months before the start of the first home mundial in the history of Russia. Genre and the upcoming tournament increase the chances of the picture to collect a decent box office. All the same, the success of “Legend No. 17” and “Moving Up” showed that sports stories – this is what hooks the viewer today. Probably, “Coach” will make the company of these pictures, but there are a few “buts”.

Plot and cast

The problem of Kozlovsky’s movie is not in the plot, which, by the way, is very good.
Russian national team forward Yuri Stoleshnikov makes a fatal mistake in a match with the Romanian team, and his team loses in the decisive meeting. In the course of the game Stoleshnikov earns a red card, and then comes into conflict with fans, resulting in disqualification (too long for such a misdemeanor) and the end of his career. A few years later, Yuri receives an offer to head the soccer club “Meteor”, playing in the FNL. As coach of Meteor Stoleshnikov will have to believe in himself again.

The budget of the film amounted to 390 million rubles (the director noted that for such a picture “it is not enough”). According to Kozlovsky, part of the funds allocated by the state, in addition, significantly helped in the realization of the project “Studio TRITE” Nikita Mikhalkov and holding VGTRK. The cast deserves only positive reviews. Inimitable Irina Gorbacheva played the president of the club Larisa Volskaya. Is it not a parallel with Olga Smorodskaya, who recently worked at Lokomotiv? Volskaya’s father, and part-time mayor of the southern town where the events unfold, played by Viktor Verzhbitsky. And dad Stoleshnikov played Andrei Smolyakov.

The conflict of fathers and children in general plays an important role in the picture. The daughter can not get out from under the patronage of an influential father, and the son-soccer player-coach can not understand whether he is proud of the most important man in his life. It is Yuri’s dialogues with his father that are the strongest in the movie, as well as the farewell scene.

Kozlovsky on the role of footballers called professional players. Vlad Khatazhenkov, Alan Gatagov, Dima Sychev, Dmitry Smirnov – familiar names for soccer fans. At the beginning of the movie “Meteor” plays with “Tambov”, which is actually coached by Andrei Talalaev. And on the screen Andrei Viktorovich is in charge of the opposing team. The stadiums are also real. Arenas “Krasnodar” and “Spartak” filmed gorgeous – immediately want to buy a ticket and go to the soccer. But the game itself is shown somewhat peculiarly. Let’s say, for the amateur. Very fast, aggressive, with an instant change of perspective. Soccer fan will be unusual to see the game in this form.

Sports is cooler than a movie

Serious attention Kozlovsky paid to soccer fans. They are presented in “Coach” in some idealistic guise. Fiers, naked torsos, shouting – it is, of course, great. But the fans in Russia are not like that. There are intellectuals, and there are also “scumbags”. In the movie, the fans are just a group of people who first hate the coach and then adore him. You can’t believe them.

But it manages to Kozlovsky, who put his whole soul into the picture. His Yuri Stoleshnikov is a very emotional and hot person. I want to empathize with him and cheer for him. It is impossible not to believe Stoleshnikov. But it is still not enough to believe the movie. As the plot develops, one can’t help thinking that the events are fictitious and have nothing to do with reality. From the very beginning the viewer knows how the movie will end. The process of rethinking by the heroes of what is happening also passes quickly and somehow too easily.

“Coach” once again demonstrates that the sporting event by emotions many thousands of times overlaps the feature film. Real victory gives such a drive, adrenaline and energy, which you do not get even on a roller coaster. What to say about a movie theater. And also in life, Russian soccer is in a more deplorable state, and there are only a few people who want to do something for society. As harsh as it may sound, our soccer doesn’t have the history that hockey and figure skating have. We don’t have victories that are talked about decades later in the world with a gasp. There are only Dasaev and Yashin among the world’s personalities. Soccer doesn’t have its own super series or its own Olympic final.

In “Coach” the events unfold around the Cup of Russia, which no one needs. Perhaps about our soccer simply can not be filmed better.