Having seen quite some movies involving one or the other sport, I can assuredly say all these have the same pattern, except for one or two which obviously go ahead and become Oscar material.
Seems like there is nothing sport'y' in these movies.
To start with, the hero, who with utmost probability is an underdog waiting to prove his worth, or a complete newbie to the game.
There is always an inspiration involved. Be it an old coach, unsuccessful at the game in his years, wanting to relive the game through his student, and/or a girl who has immense faith in the hero's talents.
The movie has a practice session, where the protagonist (and/or his team) starts off poorly and slowly pick up the game and learn the intricacies. At the end of this session, he becomes the master. The journey of the hero from the initial rounds of the game to the final is very quick, our hero beating every one in the way to the final in a convincing way.
Then, about the opponent. Ideally, the opponent is not just another competitor. He would have already had an encounter with the protagonist, where again with most probability our hero ends up being on the losing side. And now its time for the 'revenge'.
The climax, ah! This is interesting. The unwritten rule is that the game always runs into extra-time or a tie-breaker, the scores being leveled at completion time. And no guessing, our hero is the eventual winner of the game, come what may. And in this extra time, we get to hear a repeat of all the inspirational dialogues we have heard throughout the movie.
And so ends the movie.
And the question is - Why? Why should the hero always win? What if he loses at the end? Do people always like to watch successful stories?
And how many times did an underdog team win the cricket world cup? ( Cricket, because that’s the game I am most familiar with ). Once in 30 years?
