Trainer on the Beach

"The soccer coach" came out in 1984 and starred Lino Banfi in one of the most inspired roles of his great career. Yet, the beauty of the film, directed by Sergio Martino, lies in the way in which he manages to talk about football, with a lot of cameos between coaches and players that fit perfectly into various sketches.

For the few who have never seen this pearl of Italian cinema, the plot sees Oronzo Canà (Lino Banfi), a disgraced Serie B coach, being hired by the president of Longobarda, a team just promoted to Serie A, to start the new season. The good Oronzo is in seventh heaven, but he does not know that the president has chosen him precisely for his mediocrity, so as to have no hope of remaining in the top flight.

The coach thus finds himself in a complicated situation, with a mediocre team, the centre-forward in cahoots with the president (and with the president's wife, for other reasons) and a squad to be fleshed out.

Among the funniest parts of the film is the transfer market session, where in rapid sequence that scoundrel of the Longobarda president makes Canà believe he has taken Rummenigge, Platini and Maradona, while it is a bluff to further the team. But it is with the trip to South America that the turning point arrives: an unknown champion, an undiscovered star is selected by Canà thanks to the "scam" help - but not so much - of the duo Gigi and Andrea: Aristoteles is a young boy who plays locally in the fields close to the Maracana stadium.

Poor Aristoteles, however, is hindered by his companions who see him as a threat, and is soon seized by homesickness. Canà hosts him at home (with the inevitable gags due to the forced coexistence and the infatuation that his daughter has for the footballer), and in the end he manages to lead Longobarda towards salvation in Serie A.

The film has a series of jokes, situations, puns that, precisely because they hinge on football were improvised by actors during filming. Legendary are the jokes about Cana's B-Zone system of play, which is a way to return to Serie B as suggested by a hateful journalist, or that of the 5-5-5 module, with the centre forward who during the first training session asks if fifteen players are involved.

For the rest, the cameos of footballers, coaches and journalists are numerous and absolutely top-notch: Canà has to deal with De Sisti (hence the legendary joke "I beat De Sisti"), Nils Liedholm, Roberto Pruzzo, and Luciano Spinosi, just to name a few.

Canà himself is inspired by a real coach, Oronzo Pugliese, known for his impetuousness and picturesque character. The surname was changed to Canà to create a play on words between Mara (the name of Banfi's wife), and the Maracana stadium.

"The Soccer Coach" is one of those films that when you happen to catch it on TV in the evening you have to watch it until the end, without ifs and buts.