Mr. Butler is a former pro soccer player whose reputation for partying and gambling has caught up with him. He is sentenced to a year of probation, which includes working as a handyman in a dilapidated boys' home. Karen runs the home for a group of eleven boys whose parents could not raise them for some reason. Karen wants the boys to do something meaningful so she persuades them to start a soccer team known simply as "Home Team". They are terrible, but Mr. Butler, who has concealed his skills so far, is persuaded to coach the team, which eventually improves. A fire damages the home to the point that it must be torn down, and the boys will be separated, but efforts are made to keep the boys together. In a rematch, Home Team ends up defeating the first team they played on the way to a possible championship. The boys' cook Cookie, who likes to bet on horse races, made a bet with a Las Vegas bookie that Home Team would win; his winnings will be enough to get them a new house.
Screenwriter (and attorney) Pierce O'Donnell, who wrote the script in 1994, filed suit against the Canadian producer group in 2000, regarding allegedly unfair accounting practices in the film's development costs.[3]
The French title of the movie is "Une combinaison gagnante" (A winning combination) and the German name is Home Team – Ein treffsicheres Team (An unerring team).
Reception
The Wallflower critical guide to contemporary North American directors (2000) notes that Home Team was "little known" at that time.[4]VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (2004) writes that the movie has a "familiar plot but that's not necessarily bad."[5] The Radio Times Guide To Film (2007) opined that "Hollywood still hasn't got the hang of football (or soccer, as they insist on calling it) and this family-oriented frolic is decidedly minor league."[6]
Efilmcritic.com's 2001 review of the film was especially biting, calling it "an affront to film making".[7]
