As with the documental musicalthe catalog of sports documentaries has not stopped increasing in recent years, multiplying in its different versions throughout all television platforms.
Virtually every major sports figure has his own: from Roger Federer y Maradonapassing through Airton Senna y Messi, until Pau Gasol, Andy Murray or also the recent world wrestling champion Ilia Topuria
Of course, the beautiful game continues to lead the content with all types of documentaries, even focused on very specific historical moments that had a high sporting impact in the world of football, such as The Figo Case o The signing of Cruyff, and also about a wide variety of teams that have made history in different eras such as The Last Dance, Legacy: The true story of the Los Angeles Lakers or The Big Family about the Spanish basketball team.
The agenda of the new sports course is loaded with new releases, and below we also highlight some of the best recent sports documentaries.
You have no fucking idea (2024, Movistar +)
It must be recognized that Luis Enrique has earned being the most controversial and media coach in the history of Spanish football. Already in his time as a player in the two most important national clubs, he demonstrated an explosive character and a complicated relationship with the sports press, which with the passage of time has only grown, reaching its peak. when he held the position of national coach.
The premiere of the mini documentary series You have no fucking ideawhose first episode premieres on September 30, perfectly reflects How to Be Luis Enriquethat is, a guy who has no problem in say what he thinks and moves like no one else on the wire of popularity and controversy: “I don’t care how people like me, in fact, I prefer that they speak badly of me, the more shit and the more mud there is, that’s where I feel better,” the Asturian tells the cameras at the beginning of the documentary from his recent debuted as coach of Paris Saint-Germain last season.
With the main objective of winning the first Champions League Cup for the club Parisian As a common thread, the documentary works as an immersive experience that reflects its self-demanding philosophy and one of the high points was last season’s quarterfinal tie against FC Barcelona.
The series highlights how the duel between Xavi and Luis Enrique marked the media focus of the confrontation and how the PSG coach experienced the two games against his former team. Intense and absorbing like few others, his unstoppable personal energy is perfectly reflected in the alarm on his watch that sounds every 30 minutes and makes him activate all his muscle groups with various exercises throughout the day.
But the exhaustive follow-up of Lucho’s personal and professional life has its respite with the scenes of his family environment and also with the activity within his Xana Foundation dedicated to his daughter, who sadly died due to an illness, where The Asturian coach shows his most intimate version. An ending that evokes a message about the important things in life, and that greatly relativizes all the tension that surrounds the world of football.
Courtois. The return of number 1 (2024, Prime Video)
After winning the La Liga and Champions League titles with Real Madrid in 2022, winning the award for Best Goalkeeper at the Ballon d’Or Gala and celebrating his wedding in style in Cannes with the model Mishel Gerzig, Thibaut Courtois He was living the best moment of his professional career and also the happiest of his personal life. The new 2023/24 season began for him with the dream of continuing to be one of the leaders and references of the white team.
However, two days before starting the competition the goalkeeper suffered, in training and accidentally, one of the worst injuries that a footballer can have: the rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in the left knee with a recovery time after the operation which practically left him out of the season just before it started.
Through the four chapters, the documentary series basically chronicles “the comeback” of the considered “best goalkeeper in the world” and the exhaustive work during the last months with the aim of returning in full condition at the end of the season.
Adequate emotional and physical management is the daily bread of an elite footballer when it comes to dealing with injuries to return after a long break in the best possible conditions, and the viewer will be able to see how Courtois faces the tough recovery process. (within the golden cage that an elite footballer usually lives in), as well as snippets of his personal and family life, including new fatherhood.
Fortunately, the recovery was optimal and the goalkeeper managed to reach the final of the Champions League against the German Borussia Dortmund, putting in a superb performance and closing the season with the finishing touch by winning the 15th Champions Cup, consolidating his position as starting goalkeeper as well as the indissoluble reign of a legendary Real Madrid, absolute dominator of this prestigious competition.
Federer: the last twelve days (2024, Prime Video)
How a young ball boy from the Swiss city of Basel became one of the most important tennis players in history, inaugurating a golden period alongside the unrepeatable generation of the “Fab Four”.
But it is well known that athletes somehow “die twice” and after 24 years playing tennis, Federer decided to hang up his racket on September 14, 2022, announcing it by surprise and out loud through his networks.
The tennis player who has best represented elegance on the court – a “Baryshnikov” as John McEnroe called him – put an end to an exceptional career after suffering various injuries and four knee operations.
The documentary directed by Asif Kapadia (Amy, Senna) shows through an intimate view of the last moments of the end of the race of the Swiss, winner of 20 Grand Slams, and the personal liberation that came with putting an end to the entire process of physical decline.
The fall of the curtain for an athlete is never easy and his director focuses on tremendous emotionality produced by his decision to film the perfect ending of a tennis icon, with his last appearance in the Laver Cup tournament located in the incomparable setting of the O2 court in London, along with his eternal rivals Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and, of course , Rafael Nadal within an exceptional atmosphere of camaraderie.
And, as everyone knows, talking about Roger Federer is also partly talking about Nadal, great rivals on the court and excellent friends off it. Their legendary confrontations are part of the legend and epic of this sport, demonstrating that one thing does not have to be at odds with the other and that an excellent friendship can be very important in a practice as solitary as tennis.
To remember, among many other things, that mythical and exhausting Wimbledon final five hours long, as well as seeing two great icons of world sport holding hands between sobs during the Swiss farewell ceremony.
And it will not be easy for the spectator to hold back a few tears in the face of such an emotional display while watching Federer crying in front of 16,500 people closing a legendary and practically perfect career.
Beckham (2023, Netflix)
The story of the footballer who became a global media phenomenon is also a skillful and fantastic sporting portrait of one of the best footballers of the last three decades.
The story is carried with surprising fluidity by its director Fisher Stevens to recount the meteoric rise of David Beckham from his humble origins to the top of world football, focusing both on the English footballer’s sporting successes – thanks to excellent quality as a player – and on the frustration and harassment he was subjected to when he began his romantic relationship with the spice girl Victoria.
Throughout its four episodes, the documentary describes his brilliant career at Sir Alex Ferguson’s legendary Manchester United (followed by his “galactic” stage at Real Madrid) and also the suffocating media circus that he suffered like no one else throughout his career with exaggerated harassment and demolition by the British sensational media in a wild time without ethical restrictions of any kind on the part of the press.
Where other athletes could have easily given in to such pressure, the determination and resilience that the British footballer always displayed – along with one of the most prodigious and precise right legs in the history of football – led him to put together an impeccable career. sporty with practically exemplary behavior on the field. A quite convincing and truthful portrait of an impeccable footballer and another great pop culture icon.
the last dance (2020, Netflix)
Somehow the last dance perfectly represents the success and rise of the sports documentary in recent years thanks to a bold and fast-paced narrative that tells the story of one of the most unrepeatable teams in the NBA: the legendary Chicago Bulls led by the iconic, ambitious (and practically military) Michael Jordan.
Through its ten chapters, the series powerfully describes the last and turbulent 97-98 season of this basketball dynasty over which an inexplicable shadow of the “end of the cycle” loomed after having won five championships and dominated throughout the decade. from the 90s.
The excessively ambitious figure of Michael Jordan to be the most important player of all time is placed as the central axis of the story, accompanied by a legendary team made up of players such as Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Steve Kerr, or Toni Kukoc masterfully coordinated by the coach and “zen master” Phil Jackson (who would later win five more championships with the Los Angeles Lakers over the next decade) as we watch the chronicle of the intense basketball reign of the Chicago Bulls.
In excellent time management based on flashbacks Back and forth, the story navigates between the different events that arose throughout this iconic era. A story full of epic duels and in which the polyphony of voices contributed with their statements by the rest of the legends and stars of the NBA such as Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird or Isiah Thomas, help to complete the great photograph of a legendary team.
One of the risks that the documentary best takes is when addressing the central figure of Michael Jordan—that “God” with nuances—showing the chiaroscuros of his career. (its suffocating competitiveness combined with a certain tyranny and gambling addiction) and offering a more human and complete vision of the myth.
A series with a highly exciting result and first-class aesthetic enjoyment accompanied by an exceptional soundtrack that collects the best of hip hop of that time and where the images of Michael Jordan’s most iconic plays merge perfectly with the songs of LL Cool J, A Tribe Call Quest, Prince, Beastie Boys and even Pearl Jam.
A fascinating journey to one of the most important moments in the history of world basketball with a “last dance” that transcended the sport and ended up becoming pop icon of an entire decade leaving to be remembered is that legendary final solo play by Michael Jordan that provided the franchise’s sixth ring. An epic in the purest Hollywood style.
