Category: Documentary
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A perfect 10 – ‘Lionesses: How Football Came Home’ (2022)
When a football documentary is really great, it makes you root for and admire the players even though they are normally your opponents. As a long time USWNT fan since WWC 1999, I thought I would watch this docu and maybe learn a few things about England’s WNT, also known as the Lionesses. Instead, I…
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Choose to skip ‘Captains – The Chosen Few’ (2022)
A friend of mine had suggested watching the docuseries Captains, but I had not realized that there are 2 such docuseries on Netflix. This one, Captains – The Chosen Few, was released in 2022 and follows 6 national teams and their captains as they try to qualify for WC 2022 in Qatar.
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Thousands of flash-bites celebrate ‘Captains of the World’ (2023)
Captains of the World is the second of 2 docuseries on Netflix related to WC 2022 in Qatar. The first series, Captains – The Chosen Few, covered 6 teams and their captains during WC qualifying. This series covers the experiences of some of the 32 national teams at the tournament.
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‘The Ultimate Goal’ (2017) — inspirational behind the scenes
English footballer Dan Metcalfe has been the soccer coach to the stars of Hollywood, choreographing the soccer action and training the actors for many films such as Will Ferrell’s Kicking and Screaming and Amanda Bynes’ She’s the Man. In The Ultimate Goal, Metcalfe advances beyond an accessory role and adds Writer Director and Producer to…
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‘La Hija de Dios’ shows Maradona as a family man (2023)
I’m not sure why I watched the docuseries La Hija de Dios. I had resolved not to watch any more Diego Maradona films, and I was also put off by the title —The Daughter of God. But the 3-episode series popped up on HBO Max, and it was short, just 138 minutes total. So I…
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‘Ultras of Egypt’ (2018) – when revolution fails
Ultras of Egypt is one of those powerful films where, I watched it in the beginning of the pandemic and it made me so sad, I couldn’t write the review. The filmmakers interview participants from the Arab Spring of 2011, who refer to the 18-day protest in Tahrir Square as The Revolution.
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Review – ‘Higuita: The Way of the Scorpion’ (2023)
René Higuita is the kind of guy that Writer-Director Luis Ara would greatly appreciate. Higuita is a man who rose from poverty to celebrity but who knows the value of life, friendship, and passion for the game. In Higuita: El camino del Escorpión, his story is told in a well-orchestrated arc that gives you a…
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The Golden Goose – ‘Messi Meets America’ (2023)
When MLS announced Messi was joining Inter Miami FC, I admit I opposed the idea. Messi’s coming to MLS would be a black mark against and devalue his career. It would be the perfect encapsulation of MLS as a retirement league, I thought. Of course, Apple and MLS knew better, and it turned out that…
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Sadio Mané at his best in ‘Made in Senegal’ (2020)
Sadio Mané: Made in Senegal was originally meant to be a short video clip, but his boy-makes-good story was so compelling, the filmmakers turned it into a feature film. We learn how Mané grew up in a small village in Senegal, where farming was the only future available to children. Little Sadio though, was determined…
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‘Soccergate’ (2021) shows how justice is denied
Soccergate (aka Footballgate) is Episode 3 of the Netflix series Bad Sport , but it provides disappointing coverage on the 2006 match fixing scandal commonly known as “Calciopoli”. I learn something from almost all the documentaries I’ve reviewed, and it is only a very few that leave me with so many questions that I am…
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Review- ‘Black and White Stripes: The Juventus Story’ (2016)
Directors Marco La Villa and Mauro La Villa say that this film is about fathers and sons and how football unites generations and allows them to relate to each other. The twin brothers worked on this film for 10 years, after their father, a life long Juventini, passed away without ever attending a Juventus game.
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‘Super League: The War for Football’ (2023) deserves an Emmy
Having already reviewed Fulwell 73’s feature-length film Super Greed (2022), it took me a long time to get around to watching the 4-episode mini-series Super League: The War for Football. After all, how much more does anyone care to learn about a bunch of billionaires for whom football is strictly business. But Oh, what a…
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A Liverpool to remember in ‘The End of the Storm’ (2020)
At the end of the season, English clubs typically issue a compilation of highlight videos. But at the beginning of the 2019/2020 season, Liverpool felt they had a good chance to win the EPL. So they recruited James Erskine to follow the club season-long and work on a documentary, somewhat along the lines of the…
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Review: ‘Sir Alex Ferguson – Never Give In’ (2021)
We just started subscribing to Paramount+, and I was delighted to see that one of the movies available was Sir Alex Ferguson – Never Give In. It’s a delightful documentary that shows the depths and roots of the man, and how his environment shaped his coaching career.
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Review: ‘The Men Who Sold the World Cup’ (2021)
The Men Who Sold the World Cup was produced and directed by Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme, two fellows who have built their careers with documentaries that explain corruption and evil-doing in a very accessible and entertaining way. This docuseries shows how corruption is cultivated and how difficult it is to capture the bad guys…
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‘That Peter Crouch Film’ (2023) is a branding exercise
I stopped watching documentaries about current footballers and clubs because they tend to be long infomercials selling their brands. Now I must add to that list: documentaries about former footballers who now have a podcast. It’s just more branding.
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‘What Killed Maradona?’ (2020) – his super power
From what I read about Diego Maradona when he was alive, it was not easy to get him or his inner circle to talk about the unsavory side of his life. Drugs, alcohol, gangsters, infidelities, children that he refused to acknowledge, more drugs… To reveal the truth would mean falling out of favor and losing…
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‘Equal Playing Field’ from the top down (2021)
Sometimes to get people to pay attention to your message, you have to do something radical. Like have 30 women climb Kilimanjaro and play an official soccer match at an altitude of 18,800 feet.
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The business side of womens football – ‘Angel City’ (2023)
Truth be told, I watched the 3-part Angel City docuseries a couple of weeks ago, but I just couldn’t get myself to write this review. The series shows a lot about Angel City FC that I hadn’t known, and I was glad to learn it. But the coverage of the startup and inaugural year of…
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‘Soccer Shrines’ (2010) – stadiums as places of fan worship
Soccer Shrines is a series that covers fans and their football stadiums across 3 continents, selecting the better-known clubs in a country. Produced for the Canadian market in 2010, it’s a sort of travelogue. I say “sort of”, because you don’t really see much of the country that is visited, so you aren’t inspired to…
