The soccer world sat captivated as the two biggest names in the sport received the axe in the Champions League Round of 16. When the dust settled both Cristiano Ronaldo’s Juventus and Lionel Messi’s Barcelona had been reduced to rubble at the hands of Porto and Paris Saint-Germain.
A recent Netflix documentary about the legendary Brazilian soccer player Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé, tells a compelling story of the athlete’s rise to fame from 1950 to 1974. The 99-minute documentary, which includes interviews with the 80-year-old Pelé, shows Pelé’s spectacular life against the backdrop of Brazil’s politics. But the film fails to address deeper questions of race and class.
For those who have watched the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, you know there are alternate dimensions out there with different Spider-Heroes. Until Sunday, the Spider-Man of our dimension had yet to reveal themself.
We now know there is a Spider-Man in this dimension and he plays in the Polish Ekstraklasa. Frantisek Plach is a 29-year-old Slovakian goalkeeper who plays for Piast Gliwice in Poland’s top league.
For those of a certain vintage, this will be a wonderful trip down memory lane; for those whose fandom began in the 21st century, this should be an excellent introduction to the genius of one of Italy’s most celebrated footballers — on May 26, Baggio: The Divine Ponytail arrives on Netflix.
This biographical film from director Letizia Lamartire is billed as “a chronicle of the 22-year career of soccer star Roberto Baggio, including his difficult debut as a player and his deep rifts with some of his coaches.”
Amy Poehler has a new hit movie streaming on Netflix. “Moxie” was released March 3 and has been a regular in Netflix’s Top 10 since. While not technically a sports movie, the film features a depressingly accurate depiction of high school soccer in America.
We live in a golden age of soccer documentaries. From the “Diego Maradona” documentary in 2019 to Amazon’s All or Nothing series and Netflix’s “Sunderland ‘Til I Die,” soccer fans have never had so many great inside looks at the players and clubs we’ve watched on the pitch for all our lives.
A new movie about Brazilian soccer great Pelé is the latest in a series of documentaries in what has been described as a golden age of sports film.
Documentaries about American basketball player Michael Jordan, Argentine footballer Diego Maradona and Brazilian Formula One driver Ayrton Senna have transfixed fans with their insider look at the performance and personality of the biggest global sports stars.
10. Looking for Eric (2009)
9. Shaolin Soccer (2001)
8. Diego Maradona (2019)
7. Green Street Hooligans (2005)
6. Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
5. Africa United (2010)
4. The Damned United (2009)
3. Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos (2006)
2. The Two Escobars (2010)
1. Next Goal Wins (2014)
Whether it’s Kicking & Screaming, Ted Lasso or my personal favorite Pups United, Hollywood is genuinely obsessed with “running plays” when attempting to dramatize the game of soccer.
Without a quarterback, point guard, catcher, timeouts or commercial breaks to dream up some sort of grand vision that topples the antagonist, screenwriters freak the hell out when confronted by the flowing, off the cuff ingenuity that defines the beautiful game.