ESPN to do 30 for 30 series on soccer surrounding World Cup
By Ryan Rosenblatt @RyanRosenblatt on Jan 11 2014
Two feature-length films, six 30-minute films and 10 vignettes from the 30 for 30 brand will accompany ESPN's World Cup coverage.
ESPN's excellent 30 for 30 documentary series has dabbled in soccer, most notably with the excellent Two Escobars, but it is going all-in on the sport for an entire series as part of its World Cup coverage. The series will debut in April and include two feature-length films, six 30-minute films and 10 vignettes.
The lead film Hillsborough is directed by Daniel Gordon, who has done a series of documentaries on North Korea, including The Game of Their Lives, which showed the seven surviving members of North Korea's 1966 World Cup team's return to Britain and won several awards. Hillsborough will focus on the change that came from the Hillsborough disaster and the growth of the Premier League as the richest soccer league in the world from it.
White, Blue and White is the other feature-length film, directed by Camilo Antolini. It documents Ossie Ardiles, one of the first great South American players in England, whose future at Tottenham Hotspur was thrown into question when he the Argentinian returned to Buenos Aires in the midst of the Falklands War.
The set of 30-minute films is led by Maradona '86, which is a portrait of the man who captured the 1986 World Cup. The other films include Ceasefire Massacre, on the murder of innocent men in Northern Ireland while Ireland played in the 1994 World Cup, as well as Garrincha: Cripples Angel, one of the world's greatest players who teamed with Pele to win two World Cups despite crooked legs.
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