Football was the beautiful game that pretty much every person across the nation became obsessed with this summer. As lockdown eased and the weather warmed up, we gathered in pubs and friends’ gardens to watch England battle it through to the final. OK, we didn’t win. But we loved how it brought people together after so many months apart. 

With the Premier League season about to kick off and the release of the second season of Ted Lasso, Apple TV+’s popular football-focused comedy, ‘footy fever’ is still in the air. That’s why Netflix’s next big film has been announced at just the right time…

The Beautiful Game is a new film that follows a team of homeless English footballers in their quest for a win – and we already know we’re going to be cheering them on. The fact that it highlights the real life work of the Homeless World Cup Foundation – a charity that uses football to inspire people who are homeless to make changes in their own lives – is just the feel-good cherry on the cake. 

According to the film’s synopsis, the story follows down-on-his-luck Londoner Vinny, who’s “enlisted by retired football scout Mal to help him lead a team of homeless players at the Homeless World Cup in Rome”. 

It continues: “Led by their coach Mal, the team travel from London to Rome to compete in a global annual football tournament, called The Homeless World Cup. At the last minute they decide to bring with them a talented striker Vinny, but he must confront his own issues and once-promising past, in order to help the team win the cup and move on with his own life. In Rome, just as in life, everything’s to play for.”

And if you need another reason to tune in, wait for the big names in the cast.

Top Boy’s Micheal Ward plays the lead role of Vinny, while his teammates are portrayed by It’s A Sin’s Callum Scott Howells, Shadow And Bone’s Kit Young and Small Axe’s Sheyi Cole. The legendary Bill Nighy stars as the team’s coach, Mal. It will be directed by Thea Sharrock, who previously brought us Me Before You. 

We don’t have a confirmed date for The Beautiful Game’s release, but we’ll keep you updated with news about the film as soon as its announced.

Images: Netflix, Channel 4