Mario Lüthi (Max Hubacher) is a fifth-tier league Association Football player who hopes to make it into a 1st League group next year. During training, another player joins the team: Leon Saldo (Aaron Alteras), from Hanover. The two play well together and are moved into a shared flat, where they discover their attraction to each other and begin a relationship. They face opposition from Mario's agent Peter (Andreas Matti), as well as their teammates, particularly the homophobic Lafranconi (Scherwin Amini).
Has nothing to do with the protagonist of a popular video game franchise.
Mario contains examples of:
- Amusement Park: Mario and Leon visit one before they begin their relationship. They kick soccer balls at a machine that measures their speed. Afterwards, Mario plays a game and wins an orca keychain, which he gives to Leon, who has a poster of an orca in his bedroom.
- The Beard: Mario pretends to be dating his best friend Jenny Odermatt (Jessy Moravec). She goes along with it at first, but eventually becomes sick of living a lie, especially since she's starting to get serious with her actual boyfriend Sven, and "dumps" him.
- Blackmail: Lafranconi agrees to be secretive about Mario and Leon's relationship and quit the harassment if Mario passes the ball to him more often so he'll score more goals and look better to the higher-ups.
- Career Versus Man: If Mario and Leon pursue their relationship, it'll hurt their careers. If they focus on football, they won't be able to have a relationship. In the end, they make opposite decisions. Mario becomes a lonely and depressed but famous football player, while Leon finds a new boyfriend named Joel and gives up on professional sports altogether.
- Cry into Chest: Leon cries into Mario's chest over being forced to hide their relationship.
- Forced Out of the Closet: Mario and Leon keep their relationship a secret at first, until an unknown team member finds out and tells everyone else. Mario learns their secret is out when he finds gay porn taped inside his locker.
- Gayngst: The homophobic bullying Mario and Leon suffer at the hands of their teammates, which includes a letter sent to Mario's dad that says "Your son sucks dicks instead of scoring goals."
- Last Het Romance: Mario tells Leon that he dated a girl he wasn't attracted to for two months when he was sixteen.
- Not Staying for Breakfast: The morning after Mario and Leon have sex, Leon wakes up to find a note that says, "I'm at my parents'. See you Monday." They don't see each other again until next practice.
- Pac Man Fever: Early in the movie, Mario is shown playing a video game with a soundtrack of bleeps and bloops. Surprising, since later he and Leon play a 3D animated racing game with driving sound effects.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Mario and Jenny have been best friends since they were ten. They're very close and do things like kiss each other on the lips even before they start pretending to date. Leon is surprised to learn that they aren't having sex.
