THE BECKER BUGLE

Mexican actor KUNO BECKER almost missed out starring in soccer movie trilogy GOAL because he could hardly kick a ball at his audition. Becker, who plays footballer SANTIAGO MUNEZ in the DANNY CANNON films, reveals the director almost sent him home after he failed to deliver on the soccer pitch.

But Becker persevered because he'd worked so hard on his skills in the weeks leading up to the audition in England. He explains, "I trained so hard that I had stress fractures in my ankles. So the day of the audition, I was icing my feet every two hours. Forget about playing soccer, I couldn't walk.

"Danny Cannon told me to do a couple of things with the ball and I couldn't do them. He told me to go back and catch my flight to Los Angeles, and thanks for coming. "I said to myself, 'I'm already here. I broke my freakin' ankles, so he at least has to see what I've learned.' "I went back and told one of the producers, 'Tell Danny Cannon to try to get the ball from me, on the field.' Danny tried five times and could only do it once.

"When I was in the parking lot, the producer came to me and said, 'You know what? You got the role.'" But that wasn't the end of injury-prone Becker's pain: "During filming somebody hit me and accidentally broke my nose and then when we shot the sequel, somebody broke it again." The trilogy's second installment GOAL 2: LIVING THE DREAM is released this autumn (06).

Goal! The Dream Begins" is another sports movie that shares the love of the sport with heart.

Newcomer Kuno Becker plays Santiago Muñez, an illegal immigrant who came from Mexico to Los Angeles to do yard work with his father's company. The only thing that he does for himself is play soccer.

When former scout Glen Foy, played by Stephen Dillane, happens to see Muñez playing club soccer, he tells Muñez that if he wanted to, he could have a chance at going pro. After much consideration and many fights with his father, Muñez catches a plane to Newcastle, England, to try out for their professional soccer team.

The trial is long and Muñez suffers many speed bumps in his path to success, even a romantic plot twist, but, of course, his story ends happily.

Many Redlands movie goers enjoyed this version of a hero's rise from the gutter, giving the movie an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5. Fourteen people filled out a survey at the 1:55 p.m. showing on May 14 at the Krikorian Theaters in Redlands. Five of them said they would absolutley reccommend it.

The acting was also extremely well received by the Sunday crowd. Many thought highly of Becker's performance in particular.

"Everyone held their own; the actor who played Santiago Muñez was very believable, as well as all of the others," said Sylvia Banta of Redlands.

Wendy Thomas of Irvine commented on Becker's acting ability as an up-and-coming actor.

"I had never heard of Kuno Becker before this movie. He was impressive!" she said.

Many were impressed with the plot line and called it "exciting."

Banta said that the plot was both "exciting and believable, although possibly not probable."

The music was a definite winner, as many audience members said that they would soon be purchasing the soundtrack.

"We're going to buy it now," Banta said.

"I am going to get the soundtrack right now," said Thomas.

The soundtrack included such songs by former Oasis bandmate Noel Gallagher as "Who Put the Weight of the World on My Shoulders?" and a remix of the Oasis song "Morning Glory."

Because of a great deal of sports action, the cinematography was mainly done on the field, which few members of the audience commented on. Banta did think that it was "very good."

The story of "Goal! The Dream Begins" speaks to its audience of triumph and strife, pain and excitement. The movie shows its viewers the life of a young man who has nothing but a talent that is waiting to be discovered. And, of course, success ensues.  

BY ROGER EBERT / May 12, 2006

"Goal! The Dream Begins" is a rags-to-riches sports saga containing all the usual elements, arranged in the usual ways, and yet it's surprisingly effective. We have the kid from Mexico who dreams of soccer stardom, his impoverished life in Los Angeles as an undocumented immigrant, his dad who scorns soccer, his grandmother who believes in him, the scout who gets him a tryout with a top British team, the superstar who befriends him, and even a pretty nurse.

The movie works because it is, above all, sincere. It's not sports by the numbers. The starring performance by Kuno Becker is convincing and dimensional and we begin to care for him. He plays Santiago Munez, a busboy in a Los Angeles Chinese restaurant, who plays in an after-work soccer league so deprived that he wears cardboard shin protectors. Then he's spotted by a former soccer pro (Stephen Dillane), who tells him he has potential, and arranges for him to get a tryout with Newcastle United.

That would however involve an air ticket to England. Santiago has some money saved, but his dad (Tony Plana) nicks it to buy a pickup truck and start his own landscaping business. This is cruel, but perhaps more practical than betting the money on a future in soccer. Santiago's grandmother (Miriam Colon) says she hasn't worked for a lifetime without having some savings, and pays for him to fly to London out of Mexico City -- a wise precaution, since he has no American passport or identity.

In Newcastle, Santiago undergoes a rough initiation at the hands of the hardened soccer pros, gets his first experience of soccer in the mud, and almost loses his place on the team because of his asthma. What saves him is an accidental friendship with the team's superstar Gavin Harris (Alessandro Nivola), a party animal. How the season turns out and how Santiago fares I will leave for you to discover, not only in this movie, but in "Goal! 2: Living the Dream," which comes out later this year, and in "Goal! 3," scheduled for 2007. The fact that "Goal! 4" is not in pre-production will soon, I am sure, be remedied.

Before "Goal!" began, I moaned to a colleague that I was dreading the screening. Any movie named "Goal!" that needs an exclamation mark seems to be protesting too much, and the words "The Dream Begins" suggest that the snores will shortly follow. I see an average of one sports movie a month in which an underdog (or underhorse, or undergymnast) overcomes the odds in order to earn their exclamation mark. I know all about the grizzled coaches, the mean teammates, the dad who doesn't understand and the girl who does.

I was surprised, then, to find myself enjoying the movie almost from the beginning. It had some of the human reality of  Gregory Nava's work in movies like "Mi Familia" and the PBS series "American Family." Not the depth or beauty, to be sure, but the feeling for a culture and family ties. And Kuno Becker, a Mexican star of films and TV and three English-language films, has not only star quality but something more rare, likability. He makes us want his character to succeed.

Where possible, the director Danny Cannon sidesteps some (not all) of the cliches. We suspect Santiago's father may be proud of his son after all, but are unprepared for the way that plays out, and how Santiago's toughness is both the right and wrong choice. We know all about the understanding Irish nurse Roz (Anna Friel), except that she will have insight and understanding. We are relieved, in a way, to be spared an obligatory sex scene. And it is interesting that the boss of the Newcastle United team is not made into your standard Bob Hoskins or Colm Meany role, but is written as a German and cast with a Romanian, Marcel Iures.

"Goal! The Dream Begins" is a great sports film, and I can easily contain my impatience for "Goal! 2" and "Goal! 3".(which should, but will not, be titled "Goal! 3: The Dreamer Awakes"). But it is good and caring work, with more human detail than we expect. Specifically, it is more about Santiago's life as a young man than it is about who wins the big match. There's a subtext about immigrants in America that is timely right now, and a certain sadness in his father's conviction that some people are intended to be rich and others poor, and that the Munez family should be content and grateful to be poor. Santiago is not content, but he is driven not so much by ambition as by pure and absolute love of soccer, and that gives the movie a purity that shines through.

As the star of the Goal! trilogy, Mexican actor Kuno Becker certainly knows a thing or two about the beautiful game.

Becker worked alongside some of the greatest players in the world while filming Goal! The Dream Begins and is in no doubt as to who will be the first name to go on his Official Fantasy Game list. “David Beckham,” he says. “He is my first choice in the opening round, no question.”

In Goal!, Becker shows some fancy footwork of his own in the role of Santiago Munez – a talented young footballer from the barrios of east Los Angeles who dreams of turning professional. His big break finally arrives when he passes a trial with Newcastle United, 6,000 miles from home in the English Premiership.

During filming, he picked up tips and advice from some of the game’s leading lights. The experience clearly left a mark on Becker. “Kaka, Ronaldino and all the greats that I had the chance to work with are truly some of the best players in the world. It is hard to see past that as I was totally exposed to the best the game has to offer. The great thing now is that I can see who has it and who does not.... greatness, that is.”

Apart from acting and football, what really gets Becker’s pulse racing is music. He took up playing the violin when he was just six years old and later studied with maestros Denes Zsigmondi and Rugiero Ricci at the famous Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria proving that he certainly has more than one string to his bow!

Playing the Official Fantasy Game will be a first for Becker but he is upbeat about his chances of success. “I haven’t had the chance to play Fantasy before,” he says, “but I have no doubt that my side will dominate… after all, it is fantasy!”

As far as the real FIFA World Cup™ goes, the actor, who has a German father and Mexican mother, knows precisely where his loyalties will lie when the tournament kicks off in June. “The fact that Mexico qualified was a tremendous accomplishment but my feelings are the same as all true fans – now that we have made the finals, I want us to win. Que viva Mexico!”

Under the cover of night, a Mexican family illegally crosses the American border into California. No, this not another current events item on your local news show, but the beginning moments of Goal! The Dream Begins, the latest in the seemingly endless line of sports-themed movies from Walt Disney Pictures (opening in theaters today, under the Touchstone banner). But, unlike the mediocrity of this year’s other such offerings (Glory Road, Stick It), Goal! achieves its goal of being a cheer-inducing winner.

The immigrant Munez family moves to Los Angeles, where the embittered father (played by Tony Plana) becomes a groundskeeper and the eldest son, Santiago (Kuno Becker), holds down two jobs to save up enough money to fulfill his dreams. What those dreams exactly are he’s not quite clear on, but he knows it is not in his father’s footsteps.

A natural on the soccer field, Santiago catches a glimmer of what his life could become when his playing catches the eye of visiting Englishman Glen Foy (Stephen Dillane, star of last year’s best Disney sports film, The Greatest Game Ever Played, now on DVD). Glen is a former footballer himself, sidelined by an early career-ending injury, who sees in Santiago the raw talent and desire to succeed needed to become a professional football player - in England, that is. Glen promises Santiago to get him a try-out with the New Castle United Football Club - if he can make it to England.

After a conflict that creates an irreparable riff with his father, Santiago travels to the UK and, as the title states, his dream begins. Through several trials of culture clashing acclimation (such as learning to play in the mud) and drive-testing set backs (a health issue nearly sidelines him), Santiago makes it to the big leagues as a member of the New Castle reserve team. He befriends the starting team’s newest star player, Gavin Harris (Junebug’s Alessandro Nivola), a bad boy playa who gives Santi a taste of the downside of fame. But, with the support of team owner Erik Dornhelm (Layer Cake’s Marcel Iures), Coach Braithwaite (Billy Elliot’s dad, Gary Lewis) and potential love interest Roz (Anna Friel), Santiago manages to keep his head in the game, leading to victory and a (belated) reconciliation with his father.

(The film also features cameos by some of the hottest international football stars today, including Raul, Zinedine Zidane and David Beckham, as in Bend It Like Beckham.)

Goal! The Dream Begins opens with a sequence that is now more politically relevant than was likely intended. 10-year-old Santiago (Leonardo Guerra) and his family board a dingy looking van along with a group of individuals also hoping to live the American dream. They depart the van, run up a hill and through a hole in the fence, past screaming American Boarder Patrol. The story then skips ahead to present day where Santiago (Kuno Becker) is now a young man living in a poor section of Los Angeles. He works for his father as a day-laborer, spending his free time as the star player of a local soccer league.

Kuno Becker in Goal!

"GOAL! The Dream Begins," which opens Friday, is a classic sports underdog story in the vein of "Rocky," "Remember the Titans," "Seabiscuit," "Miracle" and "Glory Road."

But there's one big difference: The protagonist, soccer player Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker), is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has lived in Los Angeles with his grandmother, father and younger brother for a decade.

Producer Mike Jefferies says the decision to make Santiago an undocumented immigrant was made to "touch on the political issue. I have lived in L.A. for many years and am aware that [the immigrant issue] has been brewing and bubbling for some time and would be contemporary at some point."

Making Santiago undocumented also served to up the ante for the character. Santiago, who works with his father as a landscaper as well as a restaurant busboy, dreams of becoming a professional soccer player. When he gets the opportunity to try out with one of England's top-ranked teams, Newcastle United, Santiago knows that he won't be able to return to Los Angeles. "It sets the stakes incredibly high for him to achieve what he achieves," said Jefferies, who moved from England to the United States in 2000.

Alessandro Nivola, who plays the bad-boy superstar of the team, said that "Goal" is a very American story. "It is a movie that fits a Hollywood mold: It's a classic underdog story, and that is sort of something American has defined itself by," he said.

"It's interesting," he added. "Some people are saying that that kind of story should no longer be an American story — that we should send all [the immigrants] home."

Nivola's grandparents were immigrants to America. "My grandparents were refugees" during World War II, he said. "My grandmother was a German Jew and my grandfather was an Italian sculptor. She had grown up in Milan and met him in an art school. During the war, they were spied on and escaped to Paris on fake passports, and with fake documents came to New York. They had something like $5. It was a classic immigrant story."

Becker, whose great aunt was the famed Mexican actress María Félix, also comes from an immigrant family.

"My grandfather was a German immigrant in Mexico in the 1940s," he said. "My other grandfather was a Spanish immigrant in Mexico after the civil war in Spain. My two grandmothers are Mexican. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here.

"So if somebody understands [immigrants], it's me."

Becker said he was pleased to see so many American flags during the recent demonstrations for immigrant rights. "They want to be part of this society," he said of those flag-wavers. "I really believe in adapting to a society, rather than adapting a society to you."

Unlike his movie character, the Mexican-born Becker spent his childhood in Germany and Austria and studied violin from the ages of 6 to 16. Still, he said, he related to Santiago.

"Everybody has dreams," the 28-year-old veteran of numerous Mexican telenovelas said. "Everybody wants to achieve something. Everybody in my family thought I was going to be a professional classical musician and then I decided to switch to acting. My family was like, 'Are you kidding?' I said, 'I want to change the instrument.' I wanted to achieve [by] working in these kinds of movies."

"Goal!' is the first in a trilogy of films dealing with Santiago and his quest for greatness on the soccer field. The second one, "Goal! 2: Living the Dream," is scheduled for release this fall; the third installment will begin production next month during the World Cup in Germany.

Jefferies said he and his business partner, Matt Barrelle, realized early on in Hollywood that soccer could be fertile film territory. It "is not only the world's biggest sport, it is the biggest form of content on television," he explained. "It seemed to us there was a landscape upon which a journey of a young man could unfold."

The production team met with officials of soccer's world governing body — FIFA, the Federation Internationale de Football Assn. — in Paris. "They basically gave us access to feature real teams in real competition with real players in return for what would be a wonderful series of three commercials for the game, particularly in emerging markets such as Asia and the USA," Jefferies said. (A portion of the profits from the trilogy will go to developing football facilities for kids in Third World countries.)

"Once we had that established, we sat down and talked to two of their sponsors, closing deals with Adidas and Coca-Cola," he said. Besides both companies co-branding their products with "Goal!" advertising, he continued, the film was able to use Adidas properties in the movie — "not least of which is [soccer superstar] David Beckham, who appears in all three movies. And the football team [in the movie] is the Adidas-sponsored Newcastle United."

The producers then raised the $100 million to make all three films. "We were editing [the first one] when Disney picked up the rights to distribute the movie worldwide, excluding a few territories," Jefferies said. There was synergy involved for Disney: It owns ABC, which holds the World Cup broadcasting rights in the United States.

"Goal!" opened in most foreign markets last fall. "We put back the release in the U.S.," Jefferies said. "The World Cup is around the corner and the USA … has a great chance of winning."

Mexican actor Kuno Becker goes global with the American dream

LOS ANGELES -- Amidst the immigration debate sparking demonstrations in America, comes the Disney film "Goal! The Dream Begins," about a young Mexican man who got past the border patrol to grow up in Los Angeles and become a pro soccer player in Europe.

Kuno Becker, who stars as aspiring footballer Santiago Munez, is a legal resident of the United States, but stands firmly on the side of the illegal immigrants who make their lives here. The actor, a Mexican telenovela star, is grateful to both his German and Spanish grandfathers, who left their homelands to make new lives in Mexico.

"I understand immigrants 100 percent. When I see these demonstrations, I see people who want to be part of a society," says the actor. "They want to adapt. I don't believe in trying to change society for you; I believe in you changing for society.

"And the story is about that: a kid with a big dream who wants to do something positive," adds Becker. "He doesn't want to do anything wrong; he's a good guy that works very hard every single day. It's funny because this movie is creating a little bit of controversy ... but it's an inspirational movie for everybody."

Although Becker played soccer casually growing up, he had to undergo rigorous, often painful training to look competent in front of the cameras.

"I broke both of my ankles," he says. "I had a stress fracture from too much straining. My body just said 'no.' Then somebody broke my nose in one of the scenes; it was an accident. Then I pulled every single muscle. It was the toughest thing I had ever done, but I really wanted the audience to believe I was a soccer player, otherwise they would be pulled out of the story."

The filmmakers received the full cooperation of FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), which allowed them to shoot scenes during real Federation games and even feature cameos by players such as Real Madrid's David Beckham. Becker became such a familiar face at the games for Newcastle United -- Santiago's big break -- that the real-life crowds adopted his character as one of their own.

"We used to run into the field while shooting the film as they were about to play a game," Becker recalls. "It was funny because on the radio they were shocked. 'Who is this guy? The new guy from Newcastle? They never announce anything. What's happening here? Munez: What is that?' More and more they started to get used to us and at the end of the film, they were actually singing songs for Santiago."

Becker has already shot the second film in the "Goal!" soccer trilogy and hints that Santiago won't be the wide-eyed novice from the first film.

"I wanted to see the character evolve," says Becker. "I didn't want to play the same guy over and over, like three times. What we did in the second one is that Santiago is changing, becoming a lot more famous, kind of crazier."

"Goal!" takes its shot in theaters nationwide beginning Friday, May 12.

Kuno Becker Describes How He Got Involved in Goal! The Dream Begins: “Man, it was the most difficult thing in the world. Not only competitive, but also soccer-wise was really, really hard. I didn’t play a lot of soccer when I was a kid. I did play when I was in school but nothing professional. So I had to do a couple of auditions, like normal auditions, and then when I got the role…or at least half of the role. They said, ‘Okay, now can you play soccer?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. I can play soccer.’

I had to do this audition for two weeks in England with the real team, with the Newcastle United, the team of the film. I had to train with them for a couple weeks to do another audition, a soccer audition. I broke my ankles because I was training so hard, so many hours a day, that I had stress fracture. I couldn’t even walk, forget about playing soccer. So it was really, really, really hard.”

Becker almost lost the role because of his ankle injuries prior to shooting the film. “I almost didn’t get the role because of that, because the day of the audition, I couldn’t even walk, forget about playing soccer or anything else,” explained Becker. “I did learn a couple of things, like a couple tricks and stuff to keep the ball with me, and that’s where the director said, ‘Okay, you know what? You did improve,’ so I got the role. But it was really, really hard.”

Although Becker trained hard for the role, there are some scenes where a double had to be used. “I did everything in my power to be able to do as much as I could but there were certain things that even if you want to do it, you can’t do it,” said Becker. “There are certain things that these guys…they have been training for 25 years and they are 27, so it’s really, really hard to train for a couple months - four months - and achieve that level. It’s just impossible. So there were certain things that I really couldn’t do because even a lot of soccer players, they can’t do those things. Like the tricks, for example.

I did train a lot so I did as much as I could. I do things that I didn’t really know that I was going to be able to do, so that was a good thing. And the most important thing is that the audience really believes it and that the audience is not taken away by those scenes. It doesn’t take you away from the story when you see those scenes. That was my main concern. I really wanted to achieve a good level so the audience could really follow the story and just really believe that Santiago was a talented player.”

Getting Into Shape for Goal!: “I did have time to heal because that was like a month and a half before we started shooting. By the time we started shooting, I had started training but I was recovering myself. It was very, very hard. Then the actual training for the film, I did it, again, with a team and on the field. I had a football coach and I had a football teacher. I had to learn everything from, ‘This is how you go to try to score a goal...’ It was really, really bad. Physically, it was the toughest thing I’ve ever done.”

Hitting the Mark Take After Take: “It was very difficult, as you said, because it’s a whole different thing to actually play a match than to shoot a match for film. All the scenes, for example that trial you see in the first film under the rain and with mud and everything, we shot that sequence for about a week. And it was really, really hard. It was super cold. It was minus I don't know what and I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. Somebody broke my nose and it was cuts and cuts and it was constantly playing football, playing soccer for 10-12 hours. Stopping and not stopping, but it was really hard. So it’s actually harder than just playing a match.”

On Soccer Hooligans: Becker laughed when asked if he encountered any real soccer hooligans. “No, actually the Geordies were great with us. At the beginning, they were like, ‘Oh, man, this is not gonna happen. I mean, a guy that comes here and trains for four months is never going to be able to play football’ - as they call it instead of soccer.

I just trained hard and by the time we finished the film, the English fans were actually making up songs for my character, for Santiago. They were yelling, ‘Santiago is a Geordie,’ so it was really great. The people of the team, they were open to us. They were very warm with us. They were very helpful and supportive.”

Signing on to the Goal! Trilogy: “They told me from the beginning it was going to be a trilogy. I knew that so the challenge was to make my character evolve and change throughout the story instead of just playing the same guy three times. I think that’s very dangerous. It wouldn’t be interesting for the audience, too. The most important thing also is that this is a story and you have to remember that it’s about emotions, feelings, relationships and people have to relate to it. If it was just a bunch of guys playing soccer, it wasn’t going to be interesting.

What I think is interesting about this one is that this is a story of what happens inside of the soccer world, instead of just a bunch of guys playing soccer. And in the second one, I wanted to see him change. I wanted to see him evolve. I wanted to see him become a little bit crazy because that’s what happens with rock stars, soccer players, American football players. In any sport, it doesn’t matter - when a guy that comes from a very simple background gets all this money and fame and everything. I wanted to really see him change. So the challenge is still there for the third one, and I want to try to think about a couple more things to do with that.”

Becker admits signing up for three films is a big commitment. “It’s very big and it’s very challenging. I don't know about the third one. I know that it’s going to happen. The plan is to shoot the film during the World Cup in Germany and then the rest of the film, not all the film, but maybe 30% of the film during the World Cup. Then when the World Cup finishes in Germany, we’re supposed to be shooting the rest of the film there in the stadiums, with the real players, not with a real audience anymore but with a real everything. That’s the way we shot the first one and the second one. We shot it at the stadiums with the real players. It was just awesome and that’s going to give the sense of realism that we want to achieve.”

Becker’s Soccer Skills Progress from the First to Second Film: “In the second one it was actually not easier, but it was great that I did improve a lot because I kept training and I had a wonderful coach, Andy Ansah. He’s an English player and in the second one, I did a lot of things that I never in my life thought I was going to be able to do but it was just because of him. I had a great, great, great, great soccer coach. And in the third one, hopefully I’m gonna be able to do a couple more things.”