The world’s most popular sport is bound to produce scads of formulaic sports dramedies about plucky underdogs and the challenges they face mastering or at least embracing “The Beautiful Game” in pursuit of some higher um, “goal.”

“Next Goal Wins,” “Holy Goalie,” and “Bend it Like Beckham,” even the delightful Egyptian “Best International Feature” submission “Voy! Voy!” are just variations on the same formula that Hollywood trotted out for “The Big Green” or “Kicking & Screaming” — soccer as a backdrop for some other life lesson that characters need to learn.

But I’m not sure the world needed a maddeningly half-hearted two-hours-plus soccer dramedy about the “journey” and trials of players who take part “The Homeless World Cup” of soccer.

Surely the director of “Wicked Little Letters” and the screenwriter of “Millions,” “24 Hour Party People” and “The Railway Man” had better offers than this lame take-the-money-and-phone-it-in “feel good” soccer comedy.

The story of the English club recruited by a former pro soccer scout and coach to play in that year’s Rome Homeless World Cup, this “Beautiful Game” (that Pele-coined phrase/title’s been beaten to death on many other soccer films) barely humanizes the players and fails to raise the “How I became homeless” sentimental stakes that would give the story pathos.

It even shifts points of view and tries to show the “trials” of a Japanese team, a South African squad and an American all-women team competing against men, but doesn’t come close to justifying those sidebars from the main story.

Lacking much of anything else, “Game” becomes about “the games.” And while those four-on-four, 14 minute “tests” played on outdoor basketball-sized courts are novel, the odd bicycle kick or umpteenth tie-score “shoot out” isn’t enough to build a movie around.

Michael Ward of “Empire of Light” and “The Old Guard” plays Vinny, a soccer fanatic who haunts the fields near where he lives, mimicking radio broadcasts of matches as he watches and then showboats his way into youth games.

Bill Nighy is Mal, a “retired” scout who spies him, sizes Vinny up and rescues him from a pummeling by parents for messing up their kids’ match. Mal suspects something about Vinny, something he’s picked up on by coaching this men’s team he’s been in charge of for years.

Vinny, like the other members of this English world cup team, is homeless. Estranged from his wife and daughter, barely employed and living in his car, Vinny’s too proud to admit the dire nature of his situation. But judgment-free Mal sees all these players as men who have “fallen through the cracks, lost their way.” He persuades the 20something with the flashy moves to join in, take a free trip to Rome and help England “score some goals” in the Homeless World Cup.

The other players have back stories of varying degrees of interest. Enthusiastic and hyper Nathan (Callum Scott Howells) is a recovering junkie. Pedantic numbers-cruncher Aldar (Robin Nazari) is a Syrian refugee, with a shoplifter and others whose “How I ended up homeless” stories are less sketched in.

There’s very little practice and zero bonding as they make their perfunctory way to Rome, where the viewer is given a taste of the older and more shame-filled Japanese team managed by the idealistic martinet Mika (Aoi Okuyama) and the South African squad, managed by a Jesus-praying/trash-talking nun (Susan Wokoma) and the “illegal” South American refugee (Cristina Rodlo) who is the emotionally fragile star striker for the U.S. team.

Vinny judges and shuns his teammates, and he and we must learn the “secret” shame each has and “reasons” soccer legend Mal takes on this quixotic quest.

Ward gives the most interesting performance, on and off the (paved) pitch, and seems the most real character in the thing. I love Bill Nighy, but this script ensures he’s the least convincing soccer coach since Will Ferrell. Valeria Golino is colorlessly cast as the director of this “cup.”

About the only thing I took from this “Beautiful Game” was an understanding of the Homeless World Cup as an event. Homeless players are only allowed to participate in one “cup.” You can’t make a career out of homelessness, or game the system that way.

And the four-on-four, small “pitch” and short games produce a hockey-like sport that is a helluva lot more intense and entertaining than the film’s opening “It’s still nil-nil (0-0), but WHAT A game!” commentating.

But otherwise, this is just a “big game” formula sports movie that aims low and still comes up short.

Hey Netflix, maybe try spending the money to option that Egyptian marvel “Voy! Voy!” with its bigger laughs, higher stakes and genuine suspense. This “Beautiful Game” is an ugly waste of two hours and five minutes.

Rating: PG-13 for some language, a suggestive reference, brief partial nudity and drug references.

Cast: Michael Ward, Bill Nighy, Callum Scott Howells, Kit Young, Robin Nazari, Sheyi Cole, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Valeria Golino.

Credits: Directed by Thea Sharrock, scripted by Frank Cottrell Boyce. A Netflix release.

Running time: 2:05