The Face-off
Yoon Hong-dae is a footballer hounded by personal controversy after his mother conned people out of money and fled. Before the big game, Hong-dae is asked questions about his personal life in comparison to his team-mate, Park Seong-chan, who is asked game-related questions.
Determined to be the one to bring the trophy home by securing the winning goal, Hong-dae tries to steal Seong-chan’s thunder but ends up costing the team a goal. Their coach is pissed at Hong-dae. On his way out, reporters question the players about the game.
The same reporter reappears in the crowd asking Hong-dae if his mother had fled with the money. Hong-dae is pissed and pokes the reporter in the eye, making a viral incident tainting his public reputation.
PR Strategy to save Hong-dae
After there are endless memes about Hong-dae attacking the reporter, his publicist and PR agency decide to give him some time off the team. In the meantime, they invite a rookie director – Lee So-min to film a movie with Hong-dae as the subject in order to save his public reputation after the controversy.
So-min’s plan to help Hong-dae
So-min tells Hong-dae’s PR agency about the Homeless World Cup and how the national team of the Republic of Korea was going to take part in the upcoming soccer tournament of 2010.
She claims that Hong-dae could work with the team as a coach and adds that she and her team will film him working with these homeless people. Hong-dae is reluctant about the strategy but eventually gives in and decides to train the team.
Coach Hong-dae trains Team Republic of Korea
After meeting the players, So-min and Hong-dae get into a petty argument where she asks him to be nice to the teammates and audition them to assess their skills. Hong-dae realises that the players on the homeless team could not play the game at all. He figures that each player has his own quirk and tells So-min that it’s impossible for him to work with them.
That evening, Hong-dae meets his mother in secret and learns that she was seeing a businessman. He thinks that helping the team would be his only way to redeem himself because his mother was not going to turn her away from her antics any soon.
Team Republic of Korea
The next day, So-min works on the documentary film and introduces the teammates one by one. Beom-soo is an orphan man who injured himself, working on building construction. She talks about Beom-soo’s partner – Jin-ju, a disabled woman.
So-min films Hong-dae helping the team members as he learns the background stories of his team members like Beom-soo, an orphan man who met with an accident working as a construction worker. He also meets Beom-soo’s romantic interest, a disabled woman who loves soccer players.
Hong-dae then meets In-seon after Hwan-dong, the group’s only player that can score a goal gets injured. Hwan-dong asks to stay on with the team to help Hong-dae as he really wanted to apologise to his family for being a bad person in the past and abandoning them.
So-min learns that In-seon was looking for his missing girlfriend after her body was never found in a tragic factory accident. Hong-dae tells him that being a part of the team would help him be on TV and look for his girlfriend. In-seon agrees to join the team and the group practises together.
Hong-dae helps his team-mates
After trying to train his team members to the best of his ability, Hong-dae pushes the players to their limits. So-min films Hong-dae’s journey from being a nonchalant coach to an involved one. So-min forces Hong-dae to give up his house for Hyo-bong, one of the team players, to live with his daughter.
Hyo-bong’s wife had divorced him and was taking their daughter – Eun-hye abroad with her new husband. In order to have Eun-hye spend her last few days in South Korea with her father, Hong-dae’s kind gesture gets him a lot of praise. In the meantime, Hong-dae shares an apartment with Beom-soo’s girlfriend – Jin-ju and the two bond over their love for soccer.
Hong-dae’s second viral moment
The team compete with middle schoolers in order to perfect their game while they continue with their respective day jobs. One night, Hong-dae spots a group of young men trying to assault Jin-ju because of her disability. He single-handedly fights with the young men and protects Jin-ju. A local bystander releases the video online and Hong-dae’s kind gesture goes viral.
The soccer team gears up to go to Brazil for their World Cup but Hong-dae’s PR agency asks him to quit coaching as his reputation had been restored. Hong-dae abandons the team at first but then decides to support the team till the end and joins them to go to Brazil.
The first Homeless World Cup match
After watching the Brazilian team compete for their first match, the South Koreans are worried because the players are pretty great. Hong-dae asks them to push through and compete for their first match against Costa Rica. Despite all their practice, the team loses against the youthful Costa Ricans.
So-min learns that In-seon had seen someone that resembles his missing girlfriend and gotten into a fight with the Japanese team players. As a result, Hong-dae tries to protect In-seon. Later that night, Hong-dae blames So-min for not picking competent players for the team.
The second Homeless World Cup match
Beom-soo gets injured from dancing with the other players and is not able to retain his position as the goalkeeper. So-min asks the World Cup team for replacement players and they send in two Brazilians to join the South Korean team.
The South Korean team score goals based on the merit of the Brazilians, which tip off the opposite team members. By half-time, the viewers start calling out South Korea for using Brazilian players to win the game. Hong-dae decides to make the Brazilian players sit out the game while In-seon plays as the main shooter for the second half.
Hong-dae motivates In-seon and asks him to focus on the game in order to impress his girlfriend who could be watching him. Beom-soo joins as the goalkeeper despite his injury. Beom-soo fights tooth and nail to defend the goals from the opposite team.
During the second half of the match, with their best efforts the South Korean team score one goal based on their own merit and despite losing the match, the group wins the respect of the audience and themselves.
Conclusion
Despite coming in last place among all other teams with 1 win and 10 losses out of 11 games, South Korea become one of the most popular team of the 2010 Homeless World Cup. So-min’s documentary is a success with high ratings. Meanwhile, Hwan-dong’s daughter pays him a visit and introduces him to his grandson.
With a heavy heart, Hyo-bong bids farewell to Eun-hye and promises to see him soon. At the same time, In-seom continues his search for his missing girlfriend. Elsewhere though, Jin-ju finally warms up to Beom-soo since he was a soccer player now.
The entire team attends the South Korean football match to support Hong-dae, their coach and now their friend as he plays fiercely, scoring the winning goal himself.
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