Dedicated to Gurban Gurbanov, a famous Azerbaijani former football player and currently the most successful football coach of the country. In chronological order, the film shows Gurbanov's life, football career and coaching activity from the 80s of the 20th century to his promotion to the group stage of the Champions League.
The hot-tempered, unruly players of this pub league soccer team are in dire straits after having lost everything -- their drive, their skills and soon, their playing field. When mysterious Walter Keegan (Brendan Gleeson - Beowulf) shows up offering to be their coach, captain Bubbles (David Wilmot - Laws of Attraction) and the rest of his loopy, obnoxious teammates are so desperate to succeed, they agree to give him the job. Drilled into the ground with a fierce discipline they have never known, the team pushes beyond their aches and pains to gain not only redemption on the field, but more importantly, their self-respect.
Disgraced ex-England football captain, Danny 'Mean Machine' Meehan, is thrown in jail for assaulting two police officers. He keeps his head down and has the opportunity to forget everything and change the lives of the prisoners. When these prisoners have the chance to put one over the evil guards during a prison football match, Danny takes the lead.
Phil Weston has been unathletic his entire life. In college he failed at every sport that he tried out for. It looks like his 10-year old son, Sam, is following in his footsteps. But when Phil's hyper-competitive dad benches Sam, Phil decides to transfer his son to a new team which needs a coach. Phil steps in to be the temporary coach and immediately begins to butt heads with this dad over this new competition in their lives.