Netflix Options 'Friday Night Lights'-Like Soccer Story 'One Goal'

The book is the inspirational story of how Somali refugees and native-born white kids in Lewiston, Maine, banded together to win a state championship, helping bridge racial and cultural divides.


Netflix has optioned the rights to Amy Bass' One Goal, the story of how a mix of Somali refugees and native-born white kids in Lewiston, Maine, won the state high-school soccer championship.


The book — part Friday Night Lights, part Remember the Titans — tells the story of how the high-school soccer team helped bridge the racial divide in the declining mill town of Lewiston when hundreds of Somali refugees resettled there.


The team ultimately won the 2015 state soccer championship as it learned to blend the styles and cultures of the native-born white kids and the Somali teens, led by a progressive coach who hired a Somali assistant to help him. Bass broadens the story to show how it fits into the story of immigration, racism, Islamaphobia and economic decline in rust belt American towns.


Hachette published the book in February to strong reviews. Bob Costas said One Goal “epitomizes why sports matter," and Kirkus called it, "an edifying and adrenaline-charged tale of how immigrant soccer players" helped Lewiston.


Bass, a professor of history at the College of New Rochelle (and alumnus of Bates College in Lewiston), has written four books and served as a senior research supervisor for NBC Olympic Sports, winning an Emmy for her work at the London Olympics in 2012.


ICM Partners represented Amy Bass on behalf of Dan Strone at Trident Media Group.