On Thursday, February 17, the sports drama Eleven Silent Men about the British tour of Soviet football players in November 1945 will be released in Russian cinemas.

The tape was filmed by Alexey Pimanov, the brothers Oleg and Vladimir Presnyakov were responsible for the script (“Playing the Victim”‎).

According to the director, he dedicated the new film to the generation that, after the Great Patriotic War, restored the country, developed culture, science, sports and industry.

“All of them were brought up by patriots, Voroshilov shooters, athletes.

They didn’t know how to lose,” Pimanov notes.

The film starred Makar Zaporizhsky, Pavel Trubiner, Roman Kurtsyn, Andrey Chernyshov, Alena Kolomina, Evgenia Lapova, Pavel Krainov, Dmitry Belotserkovsky, Sofia Shutkina, Andrey Chernyshov, Maxim Zausalin, Alexander Alyoshkin and other artists.

Some of them have already met with Pimanov on the set.

So, Trubiner, Kurtsyn, Lapova and Krainov were involved in the dramatic action movie "Crimea"‎, and Chernyshov - in the comedy "The Man in My Head"‎.

Actors who are familiar with football firsthand were chosen for the roles of athletes, so the artists performed all the tricks with the ball on their own.

The film is based on a true story about Dynamo Moscow football players (then champions of the Soviet Union) who traveled to Great Britain in the fall of 1945 for friendly matches against local professional teams.

Soviet football players met with Chelsea, Arsenal, Cardiff City and Rangers.

Dynamo won two matches and drew two.

The total score was 19:9.

During communication with the foreign press, the players behaved extremely restrained, so the British media dubbed the athletes "eleven silent men in blue coats."

The title of the tape refers to the very headlines of journalists.

  • © Shot from the film "Eleven Silent Men"

The film begins with several storylines - to the dynamic music, the audience is introduced to the Dynamo team, flying by plane to the United Kingdom, the editorial office of the British newspaper, where the journalist Abby (Kolomina) works, as well as the local underground sweepstakes. 

The dynamics is maintained throughout the entire story, which should help the viewer not get bored, regardless of the timing of the picture - it runs for two hours.

At the very beginning, it turns out that Abby is going to fall in love with the best Soviet football player (Vsevolod Bobrov, performed by Zaporozhsky) and make a sensation out of it.

This is how the first and rather predictable romantic arc opens almost immediately: it is obvious that the journalist herself will fall in love with her “victim”. 

Another love knot is tied between commentator Vadim Sinyavsky (Kraynov) who arrived with the team and cultural attache Victoria Strelkova (Lapova), who meets the sports delegation at the airport.

They already knew each other before - in 1942, being a front-line intelligence officer, Strelkova saved Sinyavsky's life.

Through the love theme, which has a lot of screen time, the characters and motivations of some heroes are partially revealed.

Two more female characters appear in the story - the translator Sasha (Shutkina) and the lover of one of the football players Lera (Olga Lerman).

All heroines are brave in their own way, some of them make strong-willed and sacrificial decisions for the sake of love.

In addition, the football player Konstantin Beskov (Belotserkovsky), according to the plot, regularly calls his passion Vasilyeva and is silent on the phone.

Despite the courage and audacity on the field, the man is afraid to talk to his beloved even on the phone.

The British tour had a great influence on the development of Soviet sports in the first years after the Great Patriotic War, but in the tape the real degree of importance of the matches is difficult to read.

In particular, parallel plots with an underground sweepstakes and several love lines begin to seem paramount and the viewer's focus involuntarily shifts to them.

Another important consequence of the matches was the demonstration of the competitiveness of athletes from the USSR.

This is well shown in the film - at first the British public is not serious about Soviet football players, not assuming that they can compete with the strongest English clubs.

Observing the behavior of Dynamo players in life and on the field, local residents begin to treat guests with more respect, and the British perception of the situation of this sport in the USSR is changing for the better.

By the way, football scenes sometimes look a little long, but very realistic - one gets the impression that there are professional athletes on the field.

Despite the general drama, the picture stands out with a laid-back narration and keeps the viewer in good shape due to the numerous characters and their experiences.

Therefore, although the tape tells about one of the pages of the history of domestic sports, Eleven Silent Men may appeal not only to football fans.