World Cup 2022: TV series add to the fun
The 22nd edition of football’s quadrennial global tournament has been its most controversial from the moment Qatar was announced as the shock host way back in late 2010.
Now almost 12 years later, the 32-nation 2022 World Cup is finally under way in the Persian Gulf emirate.
To assist in your preparation for the 64-game tournament, Stuff to Watch has kicked out a septet of superb television series about the beautiful game to help get you in the mood.
The English Game (Netflix) Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes turned his attention to the birth of the game in his country with this six-part 2020 drama.
In the 1870s, football in the United Kingdom was a sport for the wealthy. But that was before a working-class star and his upperclass counterpart came together to change the game forever.
Kingsman’s Edward Holcroft, Sunshine on Leith’s Kevin Guthrie and Game of Thrones’ Charlotte Hope star.
‘‘The costume and production design is immersive, it’s all quite gorgeously shot, and the whole stands alongside The Crown in showing that Netflix can get this stuff done every bit as well as the BBC,’’ The Sydney Morning Herald’s Brad Newsome wrote.
Fever Pitch: The Rise of the Premier League (Prime Video)
As this entertaining and enlightening four-part BBC documentary series recounts, in the late 1980s, English football was going nowhere, banned from Europe and branded un-familyfriendly because of the dominance of hooligans on the terraces.
However, England’s success in reaching the semifinals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy changed all that. Although they eventually only ended up with ‘‘tears for souvenirs’’, Gazza, Gary Lineker and company’s fourth-placed finish had united the nation and made watching the beautiful game more than acceptable again,
From documentaries to dramas and even an Emmy Award-winning comedy, these fantastic football shows are all available to stream in New Zealand, writes James Croot.
something that the biggest clubs and one Rupert Murdoch were keen to capitalise on.
Fifa Uncovered
(Netflix)
A new, four-part documentary series that takes a look back at the world football governing body’s chequered history. Its focus includes everything from power struggles to global politics and what it takes to host a World Cup.
‘‘The show provides a fascinating, thorough and dispiriting account of the corruption that has beset world football’s governing body for decades, culminating in a 2015 FBI-led criminal indictment of 14 Fifa officials,’’ the Financial Times’ Dan Einav wrote.
Moment of Truth (TVNZ)
This new, 10-part series promises to forensically examine iconic stories from throughout Fifa World Cup history (both the men’s and women’s tournaments). Players, fans, commentators and world-leading psychologists piece together why we care so much about the game, what makes exceptional footballers tick, what lifts an individual and teams to greatness and what it tells us about ourselves.
Those featured
include David Beckham, Hope Solo, Paolo Rossi, Pele, Luis Suarez, Megan Rapinoe, Roger Milla and Diego Maradona.
Sunderland Till I Die (Netflix) As legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said: ‘‘Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.’’
This never dull, sometimes shocking, fly-on-the-wall-style reality series offers plenty of proof of that, as it details the trials and tribulations of falling giant Sunderland AFC and its longsuffering supporters.
Over two seasons you’ll see the club plummet towards the third tier of the English football pyramid, rid itself of a toxic owner, and attempt to plot a revolution and renaissance that not everyone is a fan of.
Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)
After two seasons, this fabulous transatlantic fish-out-of-water comedy runs like a well-oiled machine, and the memorable oneliners, witty bons mots and Lasso-isms come thick and fast.
(‘‘I feel like the biggest loser from The Biggest Loser’’ and ‘‘Remember pressure makes pearls; oh, that’s diamonds’’ are just two terrific examples.)
Meanwhile, the footballing scenarios and office politics are as inventive and, sometimes, unfortunately recognisable as they are nutty.
At the heart of it is a fabulous performance by Jason Sudeikis as the American football coach hired to run struggling English Premier League side AFC Richmond, but, in truth, there are so many wonderful characters that make up this bright, brilliant ensemble.
Welcome to Wrexham
(Disney+)
‘‘There’s a version of this story where we are the villains.’’
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Mythic Quest actor Rob McElhenney was aware that his dream of owning a sports team akin to his beloved Pennsylvania hometown’s Eagles could go badly.
After all, supporters of the world’s third-oldest football club had been ‘‘burnt before’’ by shady dealers making rash promises.
So they might not take too kindly to a guy best known for playing a character called Ronald McDonald and his even-morefamous-celebrity mate – one Ryan Reynolds. And that’s the tension at the heart of this fascinating and often hilarious 18-part reality series. Can a Welsh town of 65,000 entrust something they hold so dear – their beloved Dragons – to a couple of North American thespians?