OVERVIEW
The Match is a documentary about the 1986 World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and England at the Azteca Stadium, the game where Diego Maradona scored the “Hand of God” and, four minutes later, the “Goal of the Century.” Directed by Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco, and based on the book by Andrés Burgo, the film reconstructs the ninety minutes through testimony from surviving players on both sides, while tracing the conflict between the two countries back more than two hundred years.
BACKGROUND
Juan Cabral arrives at his third feature with one of the strangest CVs in documentary filmmaking. He is the director behind Sony Bravia “Balls” and Cadbury’s Gorilla, two Cannes Lions Grand Prix wins, a decade of Babasónicos music videos, and two previous features in Two/One (Tribeca, MUBI) and the recent Mar del Plata winner Risa and the Wind Phone. The Match pairs him with Santiago Franco, an FUC-trained shorts and ad director making his feature debut, and the visual fingerprint of that combined résumé is all over the film: the surviving players from both teams reunited on neutral ground in Spain, shot in a black box, lit cinematically so each man looks like Clint Eastwood, with the 1986 footage projected behind them on enormous screens. Round 12, the new Mediawan and Goodfellas sports-doc label launched in January, picked up international sales as its first Cannes Official Selection acquisition. The film opens in Argentina on May 21, a month before the World Cup begins.
THE REVIEW
Having grown up in Brazil, and having spent multiple years in football classes (I was always the worst player on both teams), I know well the dehumanization that lives behind the desire to win a game. Let’s just say the phrase “give blood for the game” is not always meant literally.
The feeling of not wanting to come out a loser lies at the bottom of wars and, in general, most of the bad things humanity has produced. When that feeling reaches the knockout phase of a tournament that happens every four years, one that many people treat as the most sacred of days, it is honestly surprising that something like Maradona’s “Hand of God” has happened only once.
The Match focuses on that eventful afternoon and goes back more than two hundred years to contextualize it. The Falkland Islands, the band Queen, dictatorship, wars, the invention of football itself, all of it gets folded in, and the film gives weight to the event for viewers unfamiliar with how big a deal it is for so many people.
In football, grudges are carried over, external conflicts get transferred onto the sport, and events from past cups are never forgotten. As important as a war between the countries is an event such as the 1966 quarter-final between the two, the match that led to the creation of the red card system and the actual start of the rivalry on the pitch, which finished with an Argentine player strangling an English flag in an impulsive action that took on mythic proportions for fans of the sport.
The journey through time is thorough, almost too thorough, given that what really happened that day can be summed up by something Maradona learned during his teenage matches: winning is what counts, cheating is part of the game, and getting caught is the actual problem. South American culture (and I know it well, being from the country next door) treats being honest as being a sucker and coming out a loser.
The documentary moves with the polish of Cabral’s commercial work. The black-box staging in Spain, with each player lit cinematically against the projected 1986 footage, gives the testimonies an unexpected stillness, while a pulsing synth score by Nico Barry and Tomás Jacobi pushes everything forward at a pace that keeps the 91 minutes feeling far faster than any football match of the same length.
As efficient as the documentary is in presenting its content, the film does not give its most interesting aspect the analysis it deserves. Why did the English players remain so deeply affected by Maradona’s act, and especially so bothered by his lying about it later with a straight face? What is it in their culture that responds differently, and how would they have handled it themselves? The English players are still baffled to this day, yet Maradona never lost any sleep over it, and later joked about the act publicly on a live show a few short years later. Those are the more interesting questions the film raises, yet it only glances at them as it moves through the main trivia of the event, such as the history behind the uniforms of that match and what eventually happened to Maradona’s shirt.
The film is effective at showing how Maradona operated on a completely different level from everyone else on the pitch, and at contextualizing the basics of the sport and its cultural weight for viewers unfamiliar with it. For anyone who already has minimum World Cup knowledge, it is a thin watch (I am not the biggest football fan, but nothing in this history was new or surprised me). The title warned us. The film limits itself far too much to the match, treating its surroundings as a checklist of trivia, while the most worthwhile approach, what the match truly represents, stays rushed.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Match is a strong entry point for anyone who has never understood why an entire continent stops for ninety minutes every four years. For viewers who wait anxiously for those ninety minutes, the film offers craft and rhythm but not much new ground. Cabral and Franco have crafted the most efficient version of this story, right on time for the 2026 World Cup. Recommended for the curious. Optional for the informed.
- Where to watch
- Coming soon
- Where to watch
- Coming soon
Play trailer
- Original title
- El Partido
- Director
- Juan Cabral, Santiago Franco
- Genre
- Documentary
- Cast
- Gary Lineker, John Barnes, Jorge Burruchaga, Jorge Valdano, Julio Olarticoechea, Oscar Ruggeri, Peter Shilton, Ricardo Giusti
- Screenwriter
- Juan Cabral, Santiago Franco
- Composer
- Nico Barry, Tomas Jacobi
- Cinematography
- Pablo G. Gallego
- Editor
- Lucas Coppolecchia, Sebastian Fasanelli, Juan P. Scaglione, Mauro Caporossi
- Country
- Language
- Spanish