Tag: Series
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What if Jerry Maguire were a Japanese ‘Old Rookie’ (2022)
I found this 10-episode Japanese TV series on Netflix, where its English title was changed from Old Rookie to the inexplicable The Old Dog, New Tricks? Perhaps Netflix added the question mark to the title to let us know that they didn’t really know what to do with the show. That’s a shame. It deserves…
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Notes: I’m boycotting ‘Terim’ (2022)
I had the docuseries Terim queued up in my Netflix watchlist. But then The Athletic published this article about Hakan Sukur, one of Turkey’s finest footballers.
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‘Untold: Hope Solo vs US Soccer’ (2024) or Hope Solo vs Herself?
In many ways, Hope Solo is a duplicate of the Tonya Harding story. Both athletes were products of the non-conformist Pacific Northwest, had a non-nurturing home life, were fatherless, and struggled economically. Both were determined not to be defined by their circumstances, but to rise above them and become champions. Of course, the reason you…
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![[Review] ‘The Playbook: A Coach’s Rules for Life’ (2020)](https://soccermoviemom.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/the-playbook-2020-thumbnail.jpg)
[Review] ‘The Playbook: A Coach’s Rules for Life’ (2020)
Click on my #Coaching tag, and you’ll see 24 documentary films and series that give insight on soccer coaches at all different levels. The stories range from youth to high school to Liverpool, Leeds, ManU, Barcelona, and Argentina. While I found something to learn in all these films, I highly recommend watching the Netflix series…
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Review: ‘Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team’ (2023)
Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team is a 4 episode series produced by Netflix. It follows several players as they agonize about making the USWNT roster for WWC 2023. Only 23 women can be selected. And after they’ve made the team, as any USSoccer fan now knows, that team turns in the worst…
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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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‘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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A long farewell to ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3 (2023)
Ted Lasso Season 3 was great and satisfying. All the stories were tidily wrapped up. The dialog was often amazing. Ted’s monologues were inspiration exemplified. The football was better. The writers explored new themes and got knee-deep in immigrant and LGBT issues. But Season 3 of Ted Lasso was a little different for me than…
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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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‘The Champions’ (2018-2023) is funny and clever from Bleacher Report
The Champions popped up on HBOMax (currently known as Max) recently, and I was a little confused by the context of this brilliant animated series, i.e. where did this come from? Originally created for the Bleacher Report by comedic writer-producer Andy Haynes, this was a web series on Youtube, mirroring the Champions League (CL) from…
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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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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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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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‘Headless Chickens’ (2023) is not afraid to be funny
The idea for Headless Chickens (Pollos Sin Cabeza) sprang from the heads of Pokeepsie Films. Although not football fans themselves, they figured when footballers and their agents are flush with money, there are many opportunities for sh*t to happen. They went to Writer and showrunner Jorge Valdano Sáenz to develop the concept.
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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…
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Review – ‘Senzo: Murder of a Soccer Star’ (2022)
It’s not often that I rate a Netflix Original so low, as usually Netflix has a minimum level of quality. But somehow, the docuseries Senzo: Murder of a Soccer Star got past the QA department. Yeah, it’s a howler.
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‘Goles en contra’ (2022) – so we never forget narco-fútbol
It isn’t right that how one dies carries more weight than how one lived. Almost 30 years after he was murdered for committing an own goal at WC 1994, the life of Andrès Escobar is portrayed in the Netflix fiction Goles en contra (English title is The Final Score).
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A last gift from Grant Wahl – ‘Good Rivals’ (2022)
This is a heavy-hearted review. I watched Grant Wahl’s docuseries Good Rivals during the two weeks that the USMNT was playing in the group stage of the World Cup in Qatar. I had hoped that Grant would see my review during the WC. But tragically, Grant Wahl suffered a fatal aortic aneursym in the press…
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#WeCAN docuseries (2022) sends a World Cup message
Canada Soccer’s #WeCAN World Cup Documentary Series is 7 enjoyable episodes that introduce you to the Band of Brothers who qualified for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Fueled by his long love of Canadian soccer, Writer-Director Max Bell crafts a story of belief and build up that should convince Canadians they are destined…
