While watching Messi’s World Cup: The Rise of a Legend, you can’t help but think of the digital age we live in. Everything we watch and consume is now on our phones and at our fingertips. Not only are films and television series tailored for search optimization, but the ultimate in auteur filmmaking, documentaries, have even been monetized for our consumption on streaming.
Gone are the days of hard-hitting journalistic endeavors where documentaries once thrived. Messi’s World Cup: The Rise of a Legend, at first glance, resembles the first Apple TV+ Messi streaming series, Messi Meets America. You can picture the meeting in the boardroom. The Apple corporate yuppies probably admit that the cost for Ronaldo may not justify the viewership.
Perhaps Apple likely ignores an ESPN article calling him one of the most famous athletes in the world. Then, they settled for research, with Messi identified as the most popular in nine world markets. Thus, a vain marketing ploy masquerading as a docuseries is born. However, the streaming service appears to have finally gotten it right recently with The Dynasty: New England Patriots., and now, we have righted a wrong with the first Messi entry.
Apple TV+’s first documentary on Lionel Messi focuses on the superstar player’s arrival in South Florida, playing for the Inter CF Miami Team. Currently, you are either a Ronaldo or Messi fan, not both. The strike against Messi is that he has never won a World Cup, while Ronaldo has. Here is Messi toiling with American soccer, considered the minor leagues of world professional football.
The follow-up deals with Messi trying to shake off the darn Howler monkey on his back. It aspires to be a series that confronts Messi’s demons on the soccer field. This becomes interesting, especially since the first episode follows Argentina’s shocking defeat to Saudi Arabia. Messi and company fell 2-1 to the upstart team in Group C of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
It was jaw-dropping, an upset on par with America and Russia in the 1980 Olympics or Appalachian State football, a Division 1-AA school, defeating Division 1 powerhouse Michigan. Even more surprising than the college basketball upset, little-known Chaminade’s victory over the number one team in the country, Virginia, in 1982.
Whether it’s a marketing ploy for Apple TV+’s soccer package or not, the idea of Messi rising from the ashes is one hell of a premise. This genuinely makes for an exciting story. The documentary draws you in from then on because it becomes a classic sports tale of one of the best beating the best. Like Josh Allen trying to outgame Patrick Mahomes, can Messi do the same with Ronaldo?
That makes Lionel Messi in Messi’s World Cup: The Rise of a Legend a comeback story about resiliency. Where the first docuseries struggled with its vain premise, the follow-up does not. The main difference is that with archival footage and a wide range of interviews. Messi is given a three-dimensional treatment that brings the viewer past Messi’s management of his own public image.
This has more to do with the drive, will, and sacrifice needed to be great. The series’ episode, “Redemption,” is by far the best. This chapter offers more color about football fandom on top of Messi’s drive to win. Also, it provides a glimpse at what many call the “wildest” World Cup in the history of the legendary tournament, where Messi was the first person to score goals in all three rounds.
Messi’s World Cup: The Rise of a Legend is a dramatic improvement over the first Messi installment. The most ardent fans, or even just passive fans, can enjoy this series. That’s because it features a legendary figure at his greatest in a historic tournament that will be thought of for years to come.
Messi’s World Cup: The Rise of a Legend is currently available to stream on Apple TV+.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBItn7fx1EM]
Messi's World Cup: The Rise of a Legend is a dramatic improvement over the first Messi installment. The most ardent fans, or even just passive fans, can enjoy this series. That's because it features a legendary figure at his greatest in a historic tournament that will be thought of for years to come.
-
GVN Rating
I am a film and television critic and a proud member of the Las Vegas Film Critic Society, Critics Choice Association, and a 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes/Tomato meter approved. However, I still put on my pants one leg at a time, and that’s when I often stumble over. When I’m not writing about movies, I patiently wait for the next Pearl Jam album and pass the time by scratching my wife’s back on Sunday afternoons while she watches endless reruns of California Dreams. I was proclaimed the smartest reviewer alive by actor Jason Isaacs, but I chose to ignore his obvious sarcasm. You can also find my work on InSession Film, Ready Steady Cut, Hidden Remote, Music City Drive-In, Nerd Alert, and Film Focus Online.
