#SeAcabó: Diary of Champions | Football | Sport

Netflix released our documentary last Friday #SeAcabó: Diary of Champions. From day one, we assumed that telling this story wouldn’t just be a matter of making another sports documentary. Because in a market where nearly 4,000 sports titles are circulating, some might wonder: Was another one really necessary?

Definitely yes. And the decision was quick. We could not avoid this call between us at the end of the RFEF meeting, when Rubiales’ words “I am not going to resign” destroyed the illusions of change born in the previous days. And, of course, another wave followed, this time in the form of a final verdict, filled with indignation, delivered by a heterogeneous group of footballers who eventually became a group and whose message resonated throughout all sectors and institutions until it provoked resignations and a transformation that has been inevitable for some time.

There, with the decision to go forward, the game began for us. Manufacturing is also a sport, a risky sport; We already know this, we are not newbies. But bring it to light #It’s Over: Diary of a Champion

During almost 15 months of production, we used our experience, patience and perseverance.

Our mission as producers of the work was to support the brilliant directorial work of Joanna Pardos and, above all, to provide all the financial, marketing and production support necessary to complete the creation of the corresponding audiovisual work, a place where players will first and probably last once we talked together about everything that happened.

It all started with the huge competition that we found ourselves in last fall, a year ago, with more than twenty major Spanish and international production companies for the rights to the players and the opportunity to tell this story. It was a hot topic, the hottest topic in Spanish sport in decades, and all the production companies wanted to do it. This created an intense race for athletes, their representatives and their entourage to lure them with individual projects, sensational offers that included big international names or inappropriate rewards in exchange for their story and their image.

In the end, we got it done, we were the ones who developed the most accurate and complete approach, and the ones Netflix chose to bring it to life, what a responsibility.

The curious thing is that although, as we say, there were many who wanted to tell this story; Many others wanted it left out or left out in this way. It is easy to imagine that the ecosystem of players, families, clubs and the Federation itself had different opinions and goals. Some players were afraid that their sports career would be limited and declined our invitation. One even canceled our interview the morning it was scheduled, although she later took part, which is good news for everyone. There was pressure on us to limit our creative freedom, censorship in the context of interviews, calls to reconsider the project…

But our goal was steadfast from the very beginning: to give voice to the players’ stories, creating a quality audiovisual work that could be distributed around the world and thus compensate for the incomplete and incoherent reporting of the champions about the events of the past year.

The documentary, through the eyes of the players, not only looks at the World Cup and what happened after it, but also looks back at the root of the problem, the years and years of lack of attention and respect for women’s football. And this happens from the point of view of the main characters, making them witnesses of their own history, narrators of their diary.

There were, as in many other productions, many more obstacles along the way. The original idea was a three-part documentary series, but it was later decided to concentrate the story into a single film, approximately 90 minutes long. This meant a failure in terms of structure, which complicated the writing, development and production work and, of course, also affected the project’s reporting.

Then came the announcement of the premiere, just a month before it. And along with this, another avalanche of dirt – negative reviews of an unpublished work. Rejection and the voices of outraged people who are not listened to are constantly angry. And so too comes our surprise, our disappointment at the thought of a polarized and tone-deaf society, protected by digital technology into mindlessly opposing positions, comfortably manipulated and divided by politicians who feed on the division they promote.

But now the film is already on the air, now the viewer can decide whether to watch it or not, thereby making a final verdict that puts any work in front of the mirror of its data, its own reality and transcendence. Now we really like to see that because of our helplessness as small producers, the public has their say and contributes with their historycomments or lovesto feed or destroy the fastest pests.

And we achieved our goal. A little empty space where we like to think that a documentary conveys the voices of the protagonists of an emotional film that packages the story and leads the viewer to a final conclusion, beyond prejudice, and it is not another damn sports documentary, but in the end, like says Alejandro Requejo, they were right.