A Winning Team

/ Rebekahrox

Winning is not the Only Thing, but it is Fun.

Kristoffer Polaha is one of my favorite Hallmark leading men, so I had high hopes for this one. It turned out to be so boring and by the book, that there is not a whole lot to talk about. Other than Kristopher Poloha’s presumably creative choice of a new hairstyle, that is. For this movie, his usual combed, parted,  and reliably swept back locks are hanging floppily and product-free over his forehead. It took some getting used to.

Emily is a star professional soccer player who has an anger management problem on the pitch. She is finally suspended from the team for yelling at a ref one time too many and goes home to spend her downtime with her widowed brother and her niece. She is very competitive and when she hobbles her niece’s laid-back soccer coach (Polaha) in a pick-up game, she is wrangled into coaching the team until he can get his ankle set. Naturally, after making a few adjustments over the protestations of the coach, they actually start to win games. This is a welcome change of fortune for the girls and their parents and Coach Ian, seeing their newfound joy in the game, is pretty much on board although they still clash over his play for the fun of it mentality and her play to win over everything approach. The story follows its preordained path with the opposites attract pair falling in like then love with trivia contests, two-legged races, and rope course adventures sprinkled in. Meanwhile, the soccer team’s winning ways continue and they are headed for the Championships.

 There is a bit of a subplot with Emily’s niece trying out for a part in a school play in addition to her love of playing soccer. Emily supports this as she is realizing, thanks to Coach’s more balanced approach to team play and also spending time with her family and other soccer-free activities,  that there is more to life than winning at sport.

Predictably, since her professional team can’t win without her she is unsuspended and summoned back to her team just in time for her to be torn between her new team’s championship final game or her professional career. Of course. All continues to go by the Hallmark playbook to the end, as it has throughout the movie.

Nadia Hatta as Emily Chen does a credible job of portraying the combative soccer star. You can feel her anger and hostility radiating out of her when her no-nonsense coach suspends her. That is softened a little too quickly once she is in the fold of her family. I would have liked to see a more gradual learning curve there. Once she is away from her professional team, she is quite nice despite her competitiveness. And more cute than scary in her tangles with coach Ian, her inevitable love interest. Polaha is as good as ever, and by the end, I must concede that his more sporty and casual hairstyle choice was probably for the best.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

35 thoughts on “A Winning Team”

  1. It’s interesting that you would have liked to see a more gradual softening of the lead actress. One thing that will make me turn off a Hallmark movie faster than finding it stars Erin Cahill, is having the lead be a bitch from the start, for no apparent reason. No way do I believe a Hallmark man, who as a rule is handsome enough to have any woman he wants, is gonna be interested in someone who is miserable and bitchy, in the hope that she will soften. I lasted about 15 minutes with this one.

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    • Not a fan of Erin either, but my most disliked is Jen Lilley. I’d tell you to pick up where you left off, because she is pretty nice once she gets to Seattle but like I said, it was pretty boring

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  3. I wanted to slip this question in on a sports story at least but are you following the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball team? It’s an awesome story. I’ll bet you are still irritated by their beating South Carolina in the tournament last year?

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  5. The night the girl from USC hit 51 points she had 2 assists. Caitlin Clark hit 38 and had 12 assists!! Who ya gonna call? I’m having so much wholesome fun with her this year. South Carolina looks invincible…….I pray they eliminate LSU in the tournament and Iowa doesn’t have to face them again.

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