With the film narrated by
Martin Bashir in a documentary form, we are told that
Norwich City manager Mike Bassett (
Ricky Tomlinson) is victorious in the Mr Clutch Cup final at
Wembley Stadium. The Canaries later take part in an open-top bus parade but their driver accidentally takes a wrong turn and they end up going down a windswept
motorway before returning to the city centre to finish the parade. Away from Norwich, it is reported in the papers that
England manager Phil Cope has suffered a heart attack during qualification for the
2002 World Cup, which started out well but has since gone badly wrong. Executives of
the Football Association meet to decide who should be the new England manager. After phoning around
Italy,
France and
Spain, they conclude that nobody wants the job and are forced to look for a new coach in England but cannot decide on who should take the role. The most successful
Premier League manager is Scottish (referencing Sir
Alex Ferguson), while the second-most successful is a former England captain (supposedly
Brian Clough) who is interested in the job, but the FA decide that he is too much of a "loudmouth" and refuse to consider him. No other English manager in the Premier League is interested, forcing the FA to look into
Division One for a new manager, with the press speculating that Mike Bassett may be the new man for the job. Mike lives at home with his wife Karine and son Jason. He is described as a former professional footballer with a journeyman career, playing for fourteen clubs including
Doncaster Rovers,
Plymouth Argyle,
Hull City,
Grimsby Town and
Darlington. When the press turn up at Mike's house to question him about the job, he initially denies the speculation until his son Jason appears with a phone to tell him he got the job. Bassett takes over the England team and moves to appoint his coaching staff, namely assistant manager turned car salesman Lonnie Urquart (
Philip Jackson) who is not interested unless Mike buys a car from him (later revealed to be a
Daewoo Nexia), and coach Dave Dodds (
Bradley Walsh), a sycophantic yes man who once managed with Mike at
Colchester United (a reference to
Phil Neal under
Graham Taylor). The team need one win from three World Cup qualifiers to get to the World Cup finals in
Brazil. Bassett heads towards
Sunderland to meet Kevin Tonkinson (
Dean Lennox Kelly), a long-retired playmaker that he believes can win England the World Cup, but upon arrival at the pub, he finds Tonkinson laying drunk on a pool table with people pouring beer into his mouth. Once calmed down, Bassett tells him to clean up his act and if he can promise to do it, then he will recall him to the squad. Bassett takes his first training session at
Bisham Abbey ahead of his first game at Wembley against
Poland. He selects a traditional 4–4–2 formation and writes his team sheets on the back of an old
cigarette packet. During the game, Tonkinson opens the scoring with a dink shot over the opposing goalkeeper, but Poland soon put more pressure and eventually equalise before going on to win the game 2–1. Bassett is criticised by the media for his formation and tactics used, while, some England players anonymously state to an interviewer that they have doubts about Bassett's credibility to lead the team. Bassett sits his coaching staff down to review the game but Doddsy's wife has taped
Ground Force over the recording. In an attempt to improve the team's mental and psychological wellbeing, they visit a sports science institute but half the team are injured in the process, leaving Bassett with selection issues over his next game against
Belgium. In a mix-up, his secretary accidentally calls up to the squad two aging
Third Division players called Ron
Benson and Tony
Hedges. When querying who they are, Mike realises she has mistaken the brand of cigarettes
Benson & Hedges as the names of players. Bassett is mocked in a press conference but claims he called them up intentionally. England lose the game 3–0, leading to pressure being placed on his family by angry supporters. For the last qualification game, England need to beat
Slovenia in order to qualify and with Tonkinson missing due to a drunken car crash, they struggle to a 0–0 draw in which captain Gary Wackett (
Geoff Bell) is sent off and Rufus Smalls (
Robbie Gee) misses a penalty. After the game, they learn that
Luxembourg have beaten
Turkey 2–0, which sees them go through on goal difference. The team head off to record the official England World Cup song with girl group
Atomic Kitten and "hellraiser"
Keith Allen. England travel to Brazil for the finals but on arriving at the airport they start 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 receives a phone call from Karine at home in England informing him that Jason was bullied at school for the Egypt draw, resulting in his eyebrows being shaved off. A training session is ruined after Urquart locks the footballs in the team's
Chevrolet Kadett and goes shopping. Wackett is then sent home for taking part in hooliganism and Tonkinson accidentally gets involved in a drunken tryst with a trans woman and is also booted from the team. During a team meeting the next morning, Urquart begins to praise the Mexicans by getting the English players to cheer "three cheers for
Ramirez"; this angers Mike, who proclaims "We're England", saying that the country hates him and that his wife is about to leave him. Urquart, unhappy with Mike's tone, asks him to get more off his chest, which leads to Mike calling him a "small-minded bigot" and criticising the car he bought from him. Urquart reacts by punching him in the nose and is effectively sacked from the team instantly. Later that night, Tonkinson reconciles with Bassett. The two share a drink and then dance drunkenly on a bar top. When Lightfoot gets to the bar and calms Bassett down, the pair both fall off in full view of the local press. The morning after his drunken incident, Bassett is involved in a press conference at which 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 reciting "
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. Reporter Tommo Thompson (
Phill Jupitus) proclaims that if England win, he will quit his job and become a bin man. In a close game in which England are the better team, they eventually succeed when Tonkinson dribbles past the Argentinian defence and blasts a shot that deflects off the crossbar. Tonkinson then punches the ball into the net – a reference to the "
hand of God" from Argentina's
Diego Maradona which helped knock England out of the
1986 World Cup. As the full-time whistle sounds and the England team celebrate with Tonkinson stripping completely naked, Bassett heads down the tunnel telling Doddsy he is going to call his wife. It is later seen in a series of newspaper articles that England advanced to the knockout stages, where Smalls ended his goal drought by scoring a hat-trick against
Romania and two more goals against
France. They eventually lost to host nation Brazil in the semi-finals. Tommo is also seen briefly working as a bin man following his statement during the final press conference. 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). Bassett replies that he is ready to move aside and let somebody else take the job. As the plane doors open at the airport, the team depart to a cheering crowd, where a surprised but happy Bassett confirms to the waiting press that he will remain as manager. == Cast ==