JUST when you thought it was safe to go back into the living room and finally be free of top-flight Spanish footballers, Netflix has gone and hit the back of the net with new signing The Champion (El Campeón).
Coming across like a bizarre mix of Good Will Hunting and Roy of the Rovers, it tells the story of a hot-headed young football star with all the self-belief of Cristiano Ronaldo. But, alas, his biggest problem is lacking the maturity of 17-year-old football star Lamine Yamal.
Diego (Marcel Serrano) has it all until a fight gets him benched and assigned a new tutor: a reclusive academic who’ll teach him to face his fears.
Diego has just been voted best young European player and, at the age of 20, he is on his way to making his team, Atlético de Madrid, La Liga champions. But his impulsive and conflictive character makes ‘The Mattress Makers’, fed up with his excesses, hire Alex (Dani Rovira), a withdrawn and lonely psychology professor, to improve his behaviour. Both will have no choice but to learn to understand each other if they are to make this fixture work.
Directed by Carlos Therón, this is a touching story set in the dizzying football world about two characters doomed to understand each other or remain rooted in the prisons of their own making.
Diego has a short fuse and the frustration and confusion he feels in dealing with dyslexia leads to problems on and off the pitch. His new tutor leads a quiet and lonesome existence and the anxiety he has battled since childhood holds him back from living his best life.
With Alex thrust into the high-flying and fast-paced life of a professional footballer, he too must learn to take a step back and learn from this troubled young superstar.
Therón‘s film lacks depth, so it’s impossible for it to keep a clean sheet over 90 minutes. End-to-end stuff it is not, but it does leave us with a comic book taste of the beautiful game in our nostrils, despite its cliffhanger finale.
(2/5)
