Mike Bassett: England Manager

England manager Phil Cope suffers a heart attack during qualification for the World Cup, which started out well but has gone badly wrong of late. The FA heads meet to decide who should be the new England manager, but soon run into trouble.

The most successful Premier League manager is Scottish (based on Sir Alex Ferguson), the second most successful is a former England captain who is interested in the job, but the FA decide that he is too much of a "loudmouth" and refuse to consider him (a reference to the numerous times Brian Clough was passed over for the England job), while none of the other English managers in the Premier League are interested. They are forced to look to Division One, and Bassett, who has just won the Mr Clutch Cup (similar to real-life lower-league tournaments with unglamorous sponsors, such as the Johnstone's Paint Trophy) with Norwich City.

Bassett takes over the England team and appoints his assistant manager Lonnie Urquart (Philip Jackson) (a reference to Lawrie McMenemy under the Graham Taylor era) who is very old-fashioned in his beliefs and still acts like a used car salesman and often compares the England players' performances to cars, and coach Dave Dodds (Bradley Walsh), a spineless "yes man" who once managed with Mike at Colchester United (a reference to Phil Neal under the Graham Taylor era). The team need one win from three World Cup qualifiers to get to the World Cup Finals in Brazil.

With a squad featuring a pony tailed goalkeeper (based on David Seaman). Kevin Tonkinson, an alcoholic from the north-east (based on Paul Gascoigne). Rufus Smalls, a striker going through a very poor run of form (based on Emile Heskey); Steve Harper, a playboy midfielder (based on David Beckham) and Gary Wackett, an extremely aggressive centre back (based on Stuart Pearce and Vinnie Jones), Bassett plays an old fashioned 4–4–2 formation, and attempts to bring football back to where it belongs. Unfortunately, he loses his first two games in charge, and his managerial career is already on the rocks. Needing to beat Slovenia in the final qualifier to make it to Brazil, England can only manage a draw. However, a shock 2–0 win by Luxembourg over Turkey sees them go through on goal difference. He and his team record the official England World Cup song with girl group Atomic Kitten and "hellraiser" Keith Allen.

So, England are on their way to Brazil. When they arrive, progress is not smooth as they start their tour by brawling with the Scottish and Irish teams. A difficult group stage sees them on the verge of heading home after they can only manage a goalless draw with unfancied Egypt before losing 4–0 to Mexico. To make matters worse, Bassett also receives a phone call from his wife back in England, informing him that his son was bullied at school for the Egypt draw, resulting in his eyebrows being shaved off. One of England's training sessions is ruined after Urquart locks the footballs in his Opel and goes shopping. Captain Gary Wackett is sent home for taking part in hooliganism. Midfield playmaker Tonkinson accidentally gets involved in a drunken tryst with a transsexual. Assistant manager Urquart is sacked after punching Bassett for berating him as useless and when Mike mixes flaming sambucas with anti-depressants, it seems things can get no worse.

The morning after his drunken incident, Bassett is involved in a press conference where he is expected to step down from the managerial position. When he announces that he is carrying on, the press begin to get hostile and Bassett responds by the reciting of "If—" by Rudyard Kipling, which he finishes by saying that "England will be playing 4–4–fucking–2" and storms out. Following this, England need to beat Argentina to get through to the second round. England succeed when Tonkinson dribbles past the Argentinian defence and blasts a shot which deflects off the crossbar. Tonkinson then punches the ball into the net - a reference to the hand of God goal from Argentina's Diego Maradona which helped to knock England out of the 1986 World Cup.

England advance to the knock-out stages, where they beat Romania and France. Rufus Smalls scores a hat trick against Romania and becomes England's top goal scorer with 52 international goals. But in the semi finals England lose to host nation Brazil. On their plane journey back to Britain, Bashir says to Bassett that England had equalled their best performance since they won in 1966 (in 1990, England finished fourth). This implies that England lost the third place playoff, which is not seen in the film. At the airport, the team depart the plane to a cheering crowd, where Bassett confirms to the waiting press that he will remain as manager.

Mike Bassett: England Manager is based on the career of Graham Taylor, and documentary An Impossible Job.[8] Shot in high definition, the film is made to look like it had been shot on 35mm.[3]

In the follow up television series, Mike Bassett: Manager, it is revealed that Bassett was sacked by England after failing to qualify for the 2004 European Championships, including a defeat to Liechtenstein. Bassett subsequently guided Newcastle United to two consecutive relegations, before unsuccessful returns to Norwich and Colchester lead to him taking over at his father's former club, Wirral County.

The movie received a mixed reception from critics.[9][10][2][3] When the film was released in the United Kingdom, it originally opened at number 3, behind Artificial Intelligence: AI and Moulin Rouge! in the top two spots.[11]

Since its release, Mike Bassett: England Manager has gained popularity as a cult film among English football fans.[12] Rugby coach Brendan Venter gave a press interview in 2010 that parodied one given by "Doddsie" in the film, in which he simply agrees with everything the questioner says, even if that contradicts previous answers.[13]

Sprackling observed in 2018 that "when the film actually came out in 2001, Sven-Göran Eriksson was in charge and he was at the height of his pomp. Everyone had become convinced that it had all changed now, that we were going to be successful and continental about it all. This bungling uselessness was all in the past. Everything felt like it was going to be all modern and new and professional. The wheels weren’t going to come off and we weren’t going to have disasters. But that wasn’t the case. That’s why people come back to [the film] so often, because the same disasters continue to happen."[14]

Stephen Glynn's 2018 book The British Football Film discusses the film at length, noting that it "does not always undercut a nostalgic and populist imperialism."[15]

It was also recalled in 2019, when, in an echo of Bassett's disastrous open-top bus parade, Norwich's open-top bus broke down as they celebrated winning the EFL Championship.[16]

Some of the events in the actual 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea mirror those in the film, with England drawing their opening group game, beating Argentina by 1 goal to nil before being knocked out by Brazil.

• Mike Bassett: England Manager at IMDb