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\n Photo: Alexandre Schneider\/Netflix\n <\/p>\n
Believe it or not, the 23rd World Cup<\/a>, typically the most hotly anticipated sporting spectacle in the world, officially kicks off tomorrow, June 11. Thanks to the debacle over Iran (which has been forced to set up base in Mexico<\/a> and reportedly seen its fans\u2019 ticket allocations revoked<\/a>), gargantuan ticket prices<\/a>, and FIFA\u2019s shameless sycophancy over its inaugural Peace Prize recipient<\/a>, Donald Trump, the surrounding buzz is now flatter than a deflated football.<\/p>\n That will no doubt all change, of course, when the tournament kicks off at Mexico City\u2019s Estadio Azteca as the focus shifts back onto the field and 48 countries \u2014 including unfancied first-timers<\/a> Cape Verde, Cura\u00e7ao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan \u2014 vie for the still-gleaming Jules Rimet. The streaming world is also doing its best to whip up some excitement with a glut of original shows and films themed around the World Cup past and present. From gritty Brazilian dramas to goofy British sitcoms, here\u2019s a look at ten shows and films that have hit the back of the net. And no, Mark Wahlberg\u2019s charmless, red-card-worthy Balls Up<\/a> doesn\u2019t feature.<\/p>\n Married filmmakers Rand Getlin and Janina Pelayo admit to knowing nothing about the so-called beautiful game, perhaps explaining why their five-part portrait of USA\u2019s World Cup preparations is more interested in the drama off the field. The joint hosts provide plenty, whether it\u2019s Christian Pulisic\u2019s controversial decision to sit out the Gold Cup, the managerial merry-go-round that saw five different appointments in 18 months, or the feud between midfielder Gio Reyna and coach Gregg Berhalter, which is so knotty it could have powered an entire telenovela. Compiled from 600 hours of footage captured everywhere from the sweat-drenched locker rooms to the players\u2019 less-than-humble abodes, U.S. Against the World offers a revealing peek into a setup that\u2019s yet to live up all the \u201cgolden generation\u201d hype. \u27bd Streaming on HBO Max\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Summer of \u201994 shows just how far football Stateside has come. Beginning at Italia \u201990, when Team USA was unceremoniously dumped out of its first World Cup with three consecutive defeats, this slice of stars-and-stripes nostalgia then charts the buildup to its first time as host. The oft-bewildering manager Bora Milutinovi\u0107, most-capped<\/a> international Cobi Jones, and owner of the sport\u2019s most famous goatee, Alexi Lalas, all help to provide context of an era in which the MLS was still a pipe dream and the general standard of players was regarded as equal to the penalty-missing Diana Ross<\/a>. Of course, USA \u2014 in both a sporting and organizational capacity \u2014 ended up acquitting itself well, as commemorated by this patriotic, if slightly formulaic, trip down memory lane. \u27bd Streaming on Tubi<\/a><\/p>\n You can always rely on the French to bring the World Cup drama. Four years after Zinedine Zidane\u2019s infamous headbutt gifted the trophy to Italy, Les Bleus self-imploded during a disastrous 2010 campaign that embarrassingly ended at the group stage. This remarkably candid documentary invites several ex-players to reflect on the pivotal moment, a team strike in which they cut short a training session to park their derri\u00e8res on the team bus, and in full view of the world\u2019s disbelieving press, too. But it\u2019s the eccentric, erratic subject of their ire, coach Raymond Domenech, who leaves the biggest impression thanks to the shared diary entries in which he labels the dissenters as everything from a \u201ccomplete moron\u201d to a \u201cbanal self-absorbed Leo.\u201d \u27bd Streaming on Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n While most players profiled by Netflix have long since hung up their boots, James Rodr\u00edguez is a still-active captain hoping to lead his country this summer to World Cup glory. The Colombian achieved superstar status overnight at Brazil \u201914 thanks to an all-time great chest-to-foot volley and a six-goal tally that earned him the coveted Golden Boot<\/a>. But he\u2019s since struggled to replicate such form across the club level, developing a reputation as something of a brat in the process. James doesn\u2019t exactly help his cause: Recollections of his unwillingness to learn German and undergo cycling training (\u201cAm I going to the Tour de France or what?\u201d) while at Bayern Munich are those of a pampered, overpaid prima donna. You\u2019re unlikely to come away with any newfound respect, but it\u2019s a fascinating insight into how the World Cup can serve as both a career launchpad and an almighty albatross. \u27bd Streaming on Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n After puncturing the inner workings of the London OIympics (Twenty Twelve) and the BBC (W1A), mockumentary maestro John Morton now takes aim at FIFA \u2014 or, well, for legal reasons, a bleeped-out governing body \u2014 in a third outing for Hugh Bonneville\u2019s bumbling executive Ian Fletcher. Moving the action from the bland corporate offices of London to a bland corporate office in Miami, Twenty Twenty Six also welcomes back Hugh Skinner as his luckless assistant Will and David Tennant as the eternally confused narrator during the Oversight team\u2019s preparation for a global football tournament that just happens to be staged across three North American countries. The new additions, particularly the hotheaded Mexican VP Gabriela, aren\u2019t much more unsubtle, and the script is more successful in skewering Gen Z and workplace culture than the open goal of Gianni Infantino & Co. But this transatlantic crossover still hits the target more often than not. \u27bd Streaming on BritBox<\/a><\/p>\n The Third Star is co-directed by the father-son team of Paulo and Pedro Morelli, best known for helming the unflinching favela drama City of Men and true-life heist thriller Criminal Code, respectively. Little surprise that the pair explore the wider context of Brazil\u2019s 1970 World Cup triumph, namely the military dictatorship that sapped national pride and heaped enormous pressure on a team \u2014 one who\u2019d stunk up the tournament four years earlier \u2014 to restore it. The five-part drama, however, still boasts plenty of on-the-field action, using 1,300 immersive VFX shots<\/a> to re-create highlights such as their 4-1 dismantling of Italy, but in a style that doesn\u2019t look like it was filmed with a potato. Opposite established names like Rodrigo Santoro, Lucas Agr\u00edcola makes his acting debut in the role of Pel\u00e9, the original GOAT who guided Brazil to victory for a record-breaking third time. Cristiano who? \u27bd Streaming on Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n If anyone deserves such a hyperbolic title, it\u2019s the one and only man to win a Champions League, Copa Libertadores, Confederations Cup, Copa Am\u00e9rica, Ballon d\u2019Or, and, most pertinently, a World Cup. Alongside Rivaldo and the less problematic of the two superstar Ronaldos, Ronaldinho was an integral part of the \u201cThree Rs\u201d that helped Brazil lift the trophy at South Korea\u2013Japan \u201902. This three-part documentary charts all the highs of a monumental career, including that audacious quarter-final lob that no doubt still keeps England goalkeeper David Seaman up at night. But it doesn\u2019t shy away from the lows, either, whether the hard-partying antics that made Charlie Sheen look like a wallflower or the bizarre prison stint after being caught with a fake passport for a country that he didn\u2019t need a passport to enter<\/a>. Still flashing that trademark, if now cosmetically altered, smile, Ronaldinho makes for illuminating company throughout a doc that\u2019s more honest than your average sanitized puff piece. \u27bd Streaming on Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n Not to be confused with the same-named<\/a> Guatemalan Civil War drama released two years ago, Mexico \u201986 is instead a \u201ctruth is stranger than fiction\u201d satire of World Cup bureaucracy. Here, Diego Luna \u2014 returning to the world of football following 2008\u2019s sibling-rivalry comedy Rudo y Cursi\u2014 plays Martin De La Torre, a pen-pushing composite creation who attempts to make Colombia\u2019s loss his Mexican nation\u2019s gain. Indeed, once the former\u2019s economic situation forces them to withdraw from hosting duties just four years before kickoff, the opportunist pulls out every unscrupulous trick in the book to thwart the rival bids from, ironically, Canada and USA. Luna, playing a character even craftier than Cassian Andor, is clearly having a blast as the mustachioed man so determined to bring the tournament home that even a magnitude-8.1 earthquake can\u2019t stop him. \u27bd Streaming on Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n Following the monkeying around of Robbie Williams\u2019s Better Man and LEGO antics of Pharrell Williams\u2019s Piece by Piece, Aston Villa goalkeeper Emi Mart\u00ednez joins the trend of animated biopics with this curious blend of sit-down interviews, archival footage, and cartoon flights of fancy: See the magical device that allows the young \u201cDibu\u201d to stop time and the anthropomorphic football who continually lays down the gauntlet. As these sequences, drawn by comic-strip extraordinaire Liniers, would suggest, this documentary is more for the younger football obsessives, with the Argentinian\u2019s dramatic career condensed into a visual Wikipedia page. But World Cup watchers of any age \u2014 unless you\u2019re Dutch or French \u2014 will still marvel at his penalty-saving heroics of Qatar \u201922. \u27bd Streaming on Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n Capping an eventful season<\/a> in which he won the Polish Cup with G\u00f3rnik Zabrze, became their majority owner, and kicked his final ball after 23 years in the game, this insightful documentary celebrates the magical left foot and restless brain of German hero Lukas Podolski. His \u201cwhoever sleeps loses\u201d mentality is reflected in the engaging, fast-paced documentary that explicitly states his intentions to chuck every sporting-biopic clich\u00e9 out of the window. Not afraid to reveal all \u2014 literally, in the case of his butt-exposing shower scene \u2014 the 2014 World Cup winner makes for far more engaging company than most of his overly media-trained peers. And throwing himself into everything from sumo wrestling to organizing music festivals (there\u2019s an unexpected Backstreet Boys cameo), Poldi is never short on extracurricular exploits, either. Who knew footballers could be so charismatic? \u27bd Streaming on Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n If that doesn\u2019t satisfy you, there\u2019s still more World Cup programming out there. USA 94: Brazil\u2019s Return to Glory<\/strong> (Netflix<\/a>) revisits the historic tournament from the perspective of its four-time winners using candid footage shot by several key players. After tackling one of his homeland\u2019s greatest living novelists (The Other Munch) and one of its most notorious con men (Trust Me), director Emil Trier turns his attention to the football team who\u2019ve qualified for their first World Cup in 26 years in Norway: The Dark Horse<\/strong> (Netflix<\/a>). And The Rest Is Football<\/strong> (Netflix<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>) is the latest podcast to make the leap to the small screen, with former England internationals Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and the ever-chuckling Micah Richards serving up a daily helping of World Cup analysis alongside the usual chummy banter.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Vulture Daily<\/p>\n An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n