After Netflix-type streaming services revealed to millions of viewers around the world that the term series does not have to call for tedious telenovelas, the series revolution is coming to football as well.
On December 8, the documentary series "Bayern - Behind the Legend" will be officially launched, which promises to present the behind the scenes of the Bavarian luxury club, as never seen before the world.
The six episodes of the series produced by Amazon may bring to the team adorned with Munich what even Robert Lewandowski failed to bring to her at the last "Golden Ball" ceremony: first and only place in the international sports discourse.
For Amazon this is not the first experience with the most popular industry of all. She has previously produced under the "All or Nothing" brand three series on three football clubs, dedicated to Tottenham, Manchester City and Juventus. To sum up, these were wonderful business cards, well-crafted and well-made PR products, and yet - PR products. Each additional edition raised the level of the final product, and the series on the Italian club was considered the best of them all. If you were wondering how Ronaldo behaves in the locker room, who allowed himself to yell at him and where his old lady friends love to eat, the Amazon series will provide perfect answers to each fan's natural curiosity and captivate you to the screen for eight full episodes.
But at the heart of "Bayern - Behind the Legend" is a pretense of a different kind, because its creators wanted to reflect in real time what is really going on at the club.
At the beginning of 2020 Bayern chiefs agreed to give them free access to the group's saints - board meetings, board meetings, closed meetings with fans and the locker room, without them or any of the production staff knowing what was expected to happen to them, and without deciding what to broadcast and what to leave behind. Closed doors.
No longer an advertising postcard, stretched over hours of viewing, but a truth in its nakedness, without blemish.
Slihmitch.
One of the stars of the series, Photo: Getty Images
The crisis came on time
This goal was only partially achieved.
Despite the authenticity that blows from all the episodes of "Bayern - Behind the Legend", and despite its documentary essence, it has not escaped the motif of overcoming a crisis so characteristic of sports cinema as a whole.
True, no director planned this, things really happened as if by script.
Filming began near the climax of the club's crisis (a 5-2 defeat to Frankfurt and the sacking of coach Nico Kovacs), continued to recover with the appointment of Hennessy Flick and the German Cup win, and from there flowed to the treble celebrations and victory in six factories.
More than 2,000 hours of filming in the bowels of the German football bishop produced valuable material for the series' creators, but many moments of suspense were left, or left, out of the series.
What exactly led to the departure of coach Flick?
Why did stars like Alaba, Boateng and Martins find themselves in other groups?
How to live quietly with the criminal entanglement of the club president perhaps a miracle?
These questions are not given a real answer.
Still, "Bayern - Behind the Legend" does the job and I would recommend everyone to watch it, thanks to two interesting strengths: unveiling the Bavarian recipe for turning a mediocre group into an economic empire and a cross-continental brand, and exposing the people behind the sleek image of stars.
When the professional director and former actor Hassan Selihmicic candidly tells about his childhood in the shadow of the Yugoslav wars, ten kilometers from the front, and remembers how his father explained to him where a rifle and a gun were hidden in their home and what to do with them if necessary, it's TV at its best.
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