Glen Foy, the ex football player from Scotland who played for Newcastle years ago, suffered an injury and then became a bit of a football talent scout, is played by Stephen Dillane. Dillane explains how his character stumbles upon diamond-in-the-rough Santiago: “Glen’s watching his grandson play football, and he spots this young Mexican- born player called Santiago and likes the look of him. He’s very excited by how he plays, so he contacts Newcastle and gets Santiago over for a trial. He brings the boy into his house, looks after him for a while and sees him through a few ups and downs and eventually takes him on, becomes his agent,” explains Dillane.
The actor recognizes that Foy has multiple reasons for recruiting Santiago: “If you do a job and you’ve been excited by what’s possible and you see the potential in somebody, you want to see it flower,” explains Dillane. “I guess there’s also a kind of egocentric thing—you want to be the one that is responsible in some way for giving the kid the opportunity to fulfill his promise.”
(From the production notes)
