If you’re not already a soccer fan, the documentary Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos isn’t likely to make you one. Back in the early 1970s, the Cosmos were the team assembled by Warner Communications chairman Steve Ross to be the centerpiece of a league that would make the sport as popular in the US as it already was in the rest of the world. After several years of failing to make much headway, he decided to recruit the Brazilian superstar Pelé, who was coaxed out of retirement by Ross’s friend Henry Kissinger.

At a time so dominated by sports movies, you would be forgiven for assuming from the title that this is some kind of a wrestling movie. (A “half nelson” is a move in which you turn your opponent’s strength against him.) You might also assume, given the knowledge that the film stars the charismatic young actor Ryan Gosling as a high school teacher at an inner city middle school in Brooklyn, that this is one of those inspirational movies about One Determined Teacher Making a Difference.