FC Barcelona Confidential (TV Movie 2004)

FC Barcelona Confidential (TV Movie 2004). 1h 21m

“You might think that a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a football club would be interesting; particularly a club like Barcelona, whose directors are directly elected by its members. But this is a disappointing film, its brief clips of the board (or indeed the team) in action do nothing to illuminate their real personalities, views or motivations; instead we get a lot of PR, as the people concerned tell the wider world (or sometimes the viewer directly) how committed they are to fixing all problems and ensuring that the club emerges triumphant. There are some good potential stories – the new board first removing its predecessors, then falling out among itself; the poor start but strong recovery of the new manager; but thereu0026#39;s no tension in the structure of the documentary, which in English has the most deadpan of narrations (though itu0026#39;s quite an extensive narration, because too little real dialogue of interest is captured to make sense by itself). And certain fiascoes (like the David Beckham u0026quot;signingu0026quot;) arenu0026#39;t even mentioned. The result is an unexciting film in which men in suits blow their own trumpets, and not much more.”