The US soccer community is an interesting animal.  It seems to never lack good ideas, what it lacks is follow through.  Videos and Blogs come and go each day that have so much potential.  A year ago one such concept was published and within days was on almost every American soccer site on the web.  It was a trailer for a little-documentary-that-could called The Soccer Project.  It has since shed it’s working title, assumed it’s feature title of Pelada, and seems determined not to be one of the great ideas that falls by the wayside.

We at 10Shirt were able to secure an interview with one of the makers of this film Gwedolyn Oxenham.  Gwendolyn is one of the two people this documentary follows, as it whisks around the world documenting the pickup games played on the dirty streets and alleyways in every corner of the globe.  Now with their premiere at Austin’s South By South West set, Gwendolyn sits down to answer our questions.

If you are new to this project we encourage to watch the attached video of the trailer, as well as visit their site and donate to their grassroots efforts in making a film the entire soccer world deserves to see.

Now with the SXSW premiere of Pelada near, looking back, how close is the final product to what you envisioned when you originally set out to make it?  Or did the vision change as the experiences did?
From the very beginning, we were all sort of reverent about pick-up—we knew the game would have a lot to offer.  But I don’t think there’s anyway to prepare yourself for stumbling upon World Cup stadium builders using their helmets as goals, or eighty-year-old Brazilians who play barefoot and knock the heck out of each other, or Iranian firemen who play in front of 1940s Mercedes fire-trucks.  What we found was even more incredible than we had expected.

Has Pelada secured a distribution deal yet?  Or is that what you are hoping the exposure of SXSW will be able to do?
We’ve signed with PBS international for foreign TV, but most of our rights are still available, and yes, we are hoping SXSW and the film festival circuit will help us secure a deal!

Are there any plans for any other film festivals in the future?
We’ve recently found out that we were selected for the Independent Film Festival of Boston.  We’ve applied to quite a few others and will know more soon.

I know much of your film was funded by donations on a very grass roots level.  Is the movie now paid for?  Or are donations from the soccer community still needed?
This movie could not have happened without the support of the soccer community.  We are still frantically raising money, as post-production (audio mix and color correct) is incredibly expensive.  So donations are HUGELY appreciated.

What was the MelroseMac contest?

Melrose Mac is an apple store in Los Angeles that ran a contest for $10,000 worth of editing equipment; we submitted our trailer and received the most votes, allowing us to win the systems that enabled us to finish the film.  We love Melrose Mac.

What did the MelroseMac contest win mean for Pelada, both in terms of the technology it secured for the movie, as well as the support the soccer community showed you?
We received around 1000 more votes than second place, thanks to the soccer community rallying around us.  What it meant was that we could finish our film:  completely broke, I have no idea what we would have done if we had not won the equipment.  We’ve spent the past six months editing in our bedrooms.

At what point did you realize that the original “Soccer Project” trailer had gone viral?  I know I saw it on at least ten different soccer websites.
Haha, I’m not sure I have realized we’ve gone “viral.”  Soccerbyives posted our trailer on his site during the Melrose Mac contest and we suddenly saw our trailer triple in the number of hits:  that was a pretty exciting day.  When you’re dirt poor, eating peanut butter sandwiches every day, working really weird side jobs to pay the bills, and sitting on each other’s unmade beds as we huddle around the computer at three in the morning, it can get pretty impossible feeling, so to see the soccer community take an interest was really encouraging.

I think most people by now are familiar with Luke and yourself, but what did the crew for this project consist of?  How many people were actually on location as you traveled the globe?
We were just four kids with a big dream.  Ryan and Rebekah are behind the cameras and Luke and I are in front and we are all co-directors.  Rebekah was my teammate at Duke and Ryan was my camera partner—they’re both fantastic cinematographers.  After three years around the world together, we know each very, very well J.

What type of equipment did you film this movie on?
We used two Sony HV1Us; it’s a relatively small, unobtrusive camera that allowed us to look more like backpackers than a film crew.  We also had one HDcam that is extremely small that we used when we felt we needed to be really covert—whether that was crossing the border between Israel and Palestine or wandering into a ghetto for the first time.

Can you talk about the song you chose for the trailer?
The Young Giant (formerly The Jakes) is a local band that went to high school with Lisa, a senior at UCLA who has been helping us with post-production.  After an appearance on MTV’s The Real World, they’ve started to blow up and we feel so fortunate that we were able to use “Cough Syrup.”  We’ve gotten so many comments saying how much people love the song, and of course, we think the band is fantastic.

Has the fact that the band formerly known as The Jakes changed their name caused any problems for you folks from a licensing standpoint?
We hope not J.  The band manager is a huge soccer fan and couldn’t have been nicer in helping us with contracts, so we don’t envision any problems.

In most of the world the sport of football is the sport of the people.  After taking part in such a unique experience, can you still appreciate the business oriented, and perhaps, detached version of professional football that is broadcasted into or homes each day?
As a player who spent all of my playing days lusting after a professional career, what we’ve seen on this trip has helped me get over that:  you know you hear about professional players whose favorite memories are the back alley games way back in the beginning, and I’ve got to spend three years seeking out those games, so I sort of feel like the most lucky girl in the world.

But of course, I’m just as excited about the Champions League game as the next person.

Amid the different cultures and languages the world over, was there any one thing you find the same everywhere you went?
There’s always a goal, whether it’s made out of beer bottles, construction helmets, rocks, trees, bicycles or drawn in the sand.   There were some other common themes and we have a section devoted to this question in the film.

Here’s a couple quick questions:

What city/region had the best food?
Brazil (Staying with families most of the time, we ate an incredible amount of homemade food.  And the barbecues are to die for.)
What city/region had the best night life?
Tel Aviv (Although we only went out about once per continent, so I’m not sure we could really be considered experts.)
What city/region surprised you most?
Iran (The government and media’s portrayal of the country is very different than the actual country)
What city/ region had the friendliest people?
It seems like every day we were declaring a new person “the nicest person we ever met.”  Everywhere we went, we were met with absolute kindness. 
What city/region had the most political tension?
Jerusalem (but we were there during a terrorist attack so that obviously escalated the tension)
What city/region had the highest level of technical ability? (in terms of soccer)
The best singular incidence of skill was in a game in Marseille, France.  Brazil was the country where every single player you met, whether eight years old or eighty years old, could make you look foolish.
If you could move to one of the places you filmed, which would it be?
Ooh, fun question.  Montevideo, Uruguay or Marseilles, France

*You can follow Pelada on Twitter @Peldadamovie

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Back in the fifties many Brazilian sides toured Europe and one club who hoped to cash in on the success of the 1958 World Cup winning Brazilian national team was Bela Vista Futebol Clube de Sete Lagoas. They weren’t a big club by any stretch of the imagination though a resourceful Brazilian businessman with an eye for opportunity organised a tour of Europe by Bela Vista in the hope of making some money.

Trumpeted as one of Brazil’s leading and most popular clubs they played 16 games in continental Europe including an opening match against the mighty Real Madrid  which they narrowly lost 2-1. More fixtures in France, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Holland saw them win just two games. Things got much worse when they crossed over into the UK.

Their opening game of the UK leg of the tour saw them get beat 5-0 by Birmingham City. They then travelled up to Newcastle where a crowd of 25000 witnessed a goalfest as the hapless visitors were hammered 12-1. The next two games against Middlesbrough and Sheffield United saw 4-0 defeats for the Brazilians.

By this time word of the exploits or rather lack of them had reached Brazil and the Brazilian FA tried in vain to recall the team claiming they were an embarrassment to Brazilian football. Finally the team returned to Brazil but not before an 8-0 loss at Luton Town and a 3-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.

Finishing with a playing record of P22 W2 D2 L18 with 20 goals scored and 76 conceded, the tour was an abject failure. However the team returned to Brazil as heroes and in their home town of Sete Lagoas were greeted with a fireworks display and granted a parade through the town.

If you enjoyed this, find more of Karl’s work at FootySphere

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This is local news footage from back in August 1988 when Glanford Park, the new home of Scunthorpe United opened it’s doors to the public. According to the official Iron website the new ground brought “gasps of disbelief” from supporters. Costing £2.5m it was the first new football ground built in England since Southend United had moved to Roots Hall in 1955.

The inaugural match saw Scunthorpe, wearing a specially commisioned strip, take on a Football League XI. Kevin Keegan, who had started his career with Scunthorpe, guested for the Iron and his appearance prompted a boycott of the event by local Labour councillors protesting his coaching involvement in the then apartheid state of South Africa. The Football League XI included Peter Shilton, Peter Reid, Mike Phelan, Danny Wilson, Trevor Francis, Alan McInally and Mick Harford amongst others and ran out easy 5-1 winners.

Scunthorpe’s old stadium, the Old Showground had been the first in England to have a cantilever stand. Opened in 1958 it was demolished along with the rest of the ground when the club moved to Glanford Park. A supermarket was built on the site and a plaque was placed in front of the delicatessen counter to mark where the centre spot had been. Here’s an image of that stand, it doesn’t look like much but it’s a piece of English football history lost forever.

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Christmas came a day early for football skills fans.  Alarazboy released volume 46 of his Viva Futbol series and we got it here for ya.
Consider this a return to greatness in my book.  Back with a hot track complete with a dance break session in the middle.  Who does like like dance sessions?  Plus you can see Rosicky do his best Magic Johnson no look pass impression.

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I often meander through the interweb looking for cheeky content for 10Shirt and every so often I stumble upon a video renders me speechless. Today’s your lucky day because I found two videos that stunned me; both feature awkward white guys dancing.

The first is of a (drunk?) man at a University of Kentucky throwball game. I don’t know which is more awkward, the dancing or the looks of the people around him.

The second video is almost enough to make me ashamed to be an American. It features a man at University of Arkansas (go figure, right?) sporting events. Unfortunately, when the rest of the world thinks of Americans, they think of this guy…

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