Humble kick

Profanity-laced United teaches a lesson in humility | Megan Basham

Sony Pictures Classics

Brian Clough's name is not known to many Americans, but in the United Kingdom, among football (that is, soccer) fans it is the stuff of legend.

As the youngest team manager in the league, Clough (rhymes with stuff) turned the second tier Derby County club into national champions. Later he took the even lower-ranked Nottingham Forest on to greater heights, winning back-to-back European Cups. But it is the 44 days in between those achievements that director Tom Cooper's film, The Damned United (rated R for what I am told is a realistic level of profanity in football circles), primarily focuses on. It is a time in which Clough (Michael Sheen) rides a wave of ambition, obsession, and pride to victory before being slammed by these very same qualities into defeat.