The footballer-focused documentaries not to miss

With the world staying inside during the global coronavirus pandemic, the beautiful game's players and fans have been looking alternative ways to get their football fix.

We have seen the 10-touch toilet paper challenge with stars such as Barcelona's Ballon d'Or winning Lionel Messi even got involved, bringing to mind the Michel Platini quote, "What Zidane can do with a football, Maradona could do with an orange" - or Zlatan Ibrahimovic's claim that whatever John Carew could do with a football, he could do with an orange.

We've also seen players take each other on in video game format with La Liga having a FIFA 20 tournament and the Hong Kong Premier League taking to Pro Evolution Soccer 2020. 

Manchester United's Marcus Rashford and his England teammate Jadon Sancho of Borussia Dortmund also fuelled their budding bromance in an England vs England FIFA 20 game, fueling transfer rumors that Sancho could be on his way to Old Trafford whenever the next transfer window opens.

Transfer rumors have filled the hours for plenty on social media. Traditional media have tuned to matches from the past, covering them as if they were live, while FIFA and several domestic leagues have opened up their archives to show such games in full.

If you don't fancy watching the 1982 FIFA World Cup in full or reliving the UEFA Champions League's 1998-99 campaign, there are other options. With over a century of scrutiny there are plenty of books that you now have no excuse for not reading or there are more than 100 films covering the world game in its myriad aspects.

Here is a recommendation of some of the best documentaries focused on individual players to catch up on while doing your bit and staying indoors.

Diego Maradona (2019)

The award-winning Asif Kapaldi (director of the Amy Winehouse documentary Amy and Senna, about Brazilian Formula One driver Ayrton Senna) tackles one of the very best to play the game.

Its focus is on Maradona's move to Napoli from Barcelona and the first 10 minutes or so, where the Argentine World Cup winner is delivered to a waiting San Paulo stadium smuggled in a car, sets the tone.

The question­ about the role of the local mafia in the subsequent press conference also foreshadows what comes next, but Maradona sparkles on the pitch as his life unravels off it, delivering a Serie A title that is still celebrated to this day.

Kaiser (2018)

Subtitled the Greatest Footballer Never to Play Football, the clue is there. The film focuses on the life and non-playing career of Carlos "Kaiser" Henrique Raposo, a Brazilian footballer who while undoubtedly talented was more interested in the lifestyle he could enjoy than he was on getting out on the pitch.

Through the help of journalists and his footballer friends, Kaiser managed to forge a career that occasionally saw him shine in training before mysterious injuries would keep him out of the starting lineup. British filmmaker Louis Myles brings the almost unbelievable story to the screen.

Becoming Zlatan (2015)

It was surely only a matter of time before one of the game's more larger than life characters was to fill screens at the multiplex as he does seats at the football stadium. 

This focuses on Zlatan's early years with interviews centered on those who helped develop the Swedish superstar at first club Malmo and then those who later moulded him.

Those early days - as the player revealed in his later autobiography - were not without their troubles but he came through them to make the first footsteps of a remarkable career, starting at Ajax and then moving on to Italy with Juventus.

Ronaldo (2015)

Asif Kapadia takes on executive producer duties for this Anthony Wonke directed insight into the private life of the then-Real Madrid star and his journey from a childhood in Madeira to becoming a Ballon d'Or winner via Sporting Lisbon and Manchester United.

It features interviews with his family, ­including his mother Dolores and his siblings. It is an inside look into one of the most well-known ­footballers to ever live and one who is constantly in the public eye - the only match footage in the film coming from an El Clasico match between Real and Barcelona in October 2014.

Ronaldo's rivalry with Barcelona's Lionel Messi and his unfailing self-belief come to the fore throughout.

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2006)

A football documentary for people who have little to no interest in football would be one way of explaining this astonishing project made by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Pareno.

The premise is simple if unorthodox: It takes every touch taken by the French maestro during a game for Real Madrid against Villareal on April 23, 2005. 

It used 17 cameras to capture them in a nod to the German film Football As Never Before, which focussed on George Best in 1970. The compelling film is completed with a soundtrack created by Scottish band Mogwai.

Keane and Vieira - Best of Enemies (2013)

Some players cannot really be defined outside of a rivalry and there was arguably none bigger in the English Premier League era than that of Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira. 

The dust had long settled on their personal involvement in Manchester United and Arsenal, whose own rivalry had also faded by this point.

That matters not as the pair crackle while reminiscing over the years they captained their respective teams in a decade-long rivalry where the teams battled for the biggest trophies in England. 

The glint in Keane's eye hints at the mischief that was to come in his later career as a pundit, while his very pointed choices in a joint selection of a combined Manchester United and Arsenal XI betrays both his unwillingness to forgive and forget. 

Keane, who was fresh into his feud with former manager Alex Ferguson over the way he left the club, overlooked players who had stayed loyal to the Scot.
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