Football and film: "The Coach"

Abstract

The film "The Coach" (Trener, 1978) directed by Purisa Dordevic, uses the film's story as a prism through which many events from the reality of football in that time period as well as the past represented by the war and death camps are viewed, and contrasts this with the economic and social context of the time in which the film was made. When the titular coach of a big football club goes abroad to Germany to work, his decision is situated at the crossroads of the professionalization of football and the economic social reality on the one hand and the reminiscence about war and German death camps and their victims on the other. The results of a football match which will determine whether the German or the Yugoslav team will qualify for the final of an important European championship symbolize the results of the passage of time and the 25 year-long development of Germany and Yugoslavia after the war.