Thirtysomething Suat still lives with his parents and works at his father's store when not practicing as goalie for the local football team, Esnaf Spor. The neighborhood's greatest wish is for Esnaf Spor to win the amateur league championship.
Acting
Erkan Can embodies glorious patheticness without begging for sympathy.
Direction
Serdar Akar finds poetry in muddy pitches and cramped apartments.
Writing
Dialogue that captures Turkish working-class humor and despair.

Director
Serdar Akar
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Turkish amateur football culture in the late 1990s provided communal identity that professional leagues couldn't replicate in working-class neighborhoods.
Müjde Ar's casting as Aynur subverted her established star persona—audiences expected her to save Suat, but the film refuses this redemption.