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The Champion (2024) - El Campeón

Netflix’s ‘The Champion’ (2024) entertains despite small flaws

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by

MJ-A
in

After watching a month of the Euros and the Copa America, the Netflix drama The Champion (El Campeón) was a welcome diversion. It’s football with a little introspection, a tale that on many surfaces looks shiny and realistic but in some areas is a bit flawed.

The Story

In the story, Diego is a 20 year old star at Atletico de Madrid with a significant anger management problem. Unbeknownst to him, his Dad and his agent plan to ride Diego’s career to a big payday — a transfer to ManCity — even though the young man wants to stay at Atleti forever. However, Diego has meltdowns on and off the pitch, resulting in a 2 game suspension, possibly 3 games. If it goes to 3 games, Atleti may not win the La Liga championship without Diego on the pitch.

For Diego to win back social media’s graces as well as the lesser suspension, agent Juanma recruits his brother Professor Alex to help Diego make up for the education he has missed. Diego can’t read very well, and Profe Alex figures out that the young man is dyslexic. Alex has his own financial problems along with anxiety, a fear of crowds, and his lost love for futbol. As in Good Will Hunting, the therapist and the patient slowly bond and organically overcome some of their individual issues. It is a very productive 2 weeks of therapy.

The bonding

Overall, the production is well done, and there are many scenes of Atleti’s stadium to convey the excitement of the fans and help market the club.

Dani Rovira as Profe Alex is absorbing to watch.

Marcus Ferrero (aka musician Swit Eme) as Diego looks a lot like Cristiano Ronaldo and puts a capital F in fiery. The young player already has the trappings of footballer wealth: an eye-candy girlfriend (Cintia Garcia as Ceci), an entourage of frivolous buddies, a mansion for all to live in, and a slew of expensive sports cars.

It’s a little hard to understand what the Profe and the player have in common, until they interact in a grass roots game and later sit in an empty Atleti stadium. They realize their shared love of the club and the game. Profe Alex also convinces Diego of his true genius of seeing spaces and an innate understanding of tactics on the pitch. With Alex, Diego increases his vocabulary and self-esteem, thereby reducing his angry outbursts. Alex in turn comes a little more out of his shell.

It all comes down to the final game, where Diego’s good behavior has gotten him on the team, but a last outburst has severely injured his ankle. The injury could impact his transfer, of which Diego only becomes aware while on the bench. His Dad (Pablo Chiapella) and agent Juanma (Luis Fernandez) try to keep Diego off the pitch to preserve the ManCity deal. Of course, the league championship all comes down to a final PK…

The flaws

I actually enjoyed this film up until the ending, which leaves you hanging. The soccer is well depicted. The drama sucks you in. The depictions of Diego’s high-end life are flamboyant.

Even the Dad and the agent are well-meaning villains who manipulate Diego and Alex for the good of Diego’s future. In the real world, it would be hard to argue with them. After all, few 20 year olds stay with the same club their whole career. Today, such a career is not even expected. Take the money and run is the usual path to fame and glory.

What I had issue with, and it’s a nitpick, was the lack of real therapy for Diego’s anger management and dyslexia. Everything else I could overlook (even the lack of an ending!). I don’t think increasing one’s vocabulary by 5 big words a day is going to cure dyslexia, and especially not in 2 weeks. And if people could control their anger management in just 2 weeks, what a great world it would be.

Besides similarities to Matt Damon’s film, El Campeón appears to leverage the 2019 Italian film Il Campione. I’m looking forward to watching that one someday for comparison. 😀

7 Soccer Movie Mom Rating = 7

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