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Entertainment
ST. LOUIS SOCCER PLAYERS WON ST. LOUIS SOCCER PLAYERS WON ‘The Game of Their Lives’ ‘The Game of Their Lives’
Seventy years ago, the U.S. Soccer Team beat England during the 1950 FIFA World Cup in a game played in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. It is not surprising; however, to learn that the victorious team from America featured players such as Frank Borghi, Frank Wallace, Charlie Colombo, Gino Pariani and Harry Keough who hailed from St. Louis. Some were born and raised in The Hill neighborhood. 2005’s “The Game of Their Lives” focused on the players and how they achieved this upset victory over England. Screenwriter Angelo Pizzo wrote the screenplay, which is based on Geoffrey Douglas’ 1996 book of the same name. During a 2005 phone interview, Pizzo, who also wrote the screenplays for the basketball drama “Hoosiers” and the memorable “Rudy,” talked about the film. “It is a great story,” he said. “When I heard the story, I was like ‘Wow! I am not a big soccer fan, but I would go see that movie.’” When talking about sports movies, films such as “A League of Their Own” and “Field
BY STEVE BRYAN
of Dreams” come to mind right away. At the time of this interview, soccer films were not that prevalent. “There really hasn’t been a vast history of soccer films in the sports genre area. There was ‘Victory,’ I suppose. That comes to mind first when I mentioned soccer films, but that was shot such a long time ago with Sylvester Stallone as the goalkeeper. Then there has been a few English soccer films: ‘The Mean Machine’ and ‘Shot at Glory,’” Pizzo said. According to Pizzo, the production company for “The Game of Their Lives” wanted to film in Canada, but director David Anspaugh and Pizzo insisted on filming in St. Louis and Rio de Janeiro where the story really happened. “The Missouri Film Commission helped us; they made it easier for us. They were extraordinarily helpful. We were in St. Louis for three or four months and we dropped 7.5 million dollars into the local economy,” he said. When shooting the film, Pizzo pointed out that they were trying to be as authentic as they could in terms of play. The cast included Costas and Louis Mandylor playing Charlie Colombo and Gino Pariani. “It’s a really small pool of really good actors who can play world class soccer,” he said. “The Mandylor brothers are from Australia; they played on the Australian National Team. The rest of the team was filled with professional soccer players.” The soccer sequences, including the clashes between players, in “The Game of Their Lives” looked very real and there’s a good reason for that. “Anything you caught in terms of conflict and clashes on the field actually happened,” Pizzo explained. “These guys got into that. We did not script that; it happened. It’s hard to choreograph to make it look like natural soccer plays. So, we got five cameras going and said, ‘Go at it, guys.’”
