TRAILER: “Hidden Dynasty: The Story of Carolina Women’s Soccer” from ESPN

The University of North Carolina women’s soccer team is arguably the most dominant dynasty in college sports history. The program, under legendary coach Anson Dorrance, has won 21 national championships in the past 40 years and reached the final another five times.

Now, their story will be told in a one-hour original documentary, Hidden Dynasty: The Story of Carolina Women’s Soccer. The film, produced by Emmy and Peabody Award winner Ross Greenburg, will by premier on ACC Network as part of ESPN’s Fifty/50 initiative on Thursday, June 23 — the 50th anniversary of the landmark Title XI law.

The Tar Heels program built by Dorrance provided the foundation for the US Women’s National Team for decades, producing World Cup stars such as Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Tobin Heath, and Heather O’Reilly, among many others.

Check out the trailer:

6 great films & TV series about Diego Maradona

To many, Diego Armando Maradona was the best footballer in history.

From the beginning, there was never any doubt about his talent. Or his flaws. He was a virtuoso whose genius on the field was matched only by his fallibility off of it.

So it’s not surprising that Maradona, who died in 2020 at the age of 60 after a life of unimaginable glories and epic failures, was the subject of countless films, including the K+S favorites In the Hands of the Gods and El Camino de San Diego. He was nothing if not entertaining.

This month, a new documentary about Maradona’s final year, titled Diego: The Last Goodbye, is out on HBO Max. It’s the latest in a slew of recent and upcoming Maradona films and series available in the United States.

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Diego: The Last Goodbye | Part chronicle of Maradona’s final days, part eulogy to his legend, this documentary includes interviews with his family, friends, former teammates, and fans. Everyone from ex-teammate Jorge Burrachaga to Paris St. Germain coach Mauricio Pochettino to biographer Ernesto Bialo reflect on what Maradona meant to them, to Argentina, and to the world.

Watch on HBO Max.

Maradona in Mexico | In 2018, in the wake of several managerial misadventures, Maradona was named manager of a small Mexican club, Dorados, based in Sinaloa, home base for one of Mexico’s biggest drug cartels. This seven-part series follows his time there, the media frenzy, the temptations, and, finally, the failure.

Watch on Netflix.

Diego Maradona | Directed by Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy), this documentary uses intimate never-before-seen footage to explore Maradona’s time at Italian club Napoli in the 1980s. Trophies, drugs, the mafia — it was a wild ride.

Watch on HBO Max.

Maradona: Blessed Dream | A 10-part series dramatizing Maradona’s life story, from his tough childhood in the barrios of Buenos Aires to the thrills of the World Cup. Argentine star Nazareno Casero portrays Diego as a young man, while Nicolás Goldschmidt takes the teenage years, and newcomer Juan Cruz Romero plays the childhood years.

Watch on Amazon Prime.

In the Hands of the Gods | Five British freestyling football friends head off on an epic journey to meet their idol: Diego Armando Maradona.

Watch on DocumentaryTube.com (free).

Maradona: The Fall | Coming this fall. As part of the launch of DaZN Studios, from live streaming platform DaZN, this feature-length documentary “explores football legend Diego Maradona’s fall from grace following a failed drug test during the 1994 World Cup. Angus MacQueen, who helmed Maradona in Mexico, will direct.

Learn more.

Slew of soccer films coming to Netflix, Amazon, HBO & DaZN

Not sure when it started, but we are clearly entering a new, glorious era of soccer films.

It starts with Neflix’s three-part series Neymar: The Perfect Chaos, which comes out January 25. It looks wildly entertaining. Check out the trailer.

But Neymaring & chilling is just the start of a soccer-film cornucopia coming soon.

DaZN, the global live streaming platform, is launching a new original production studio, and soccer films are at the center of their strategy. They have three documentaries in the works.

• Maradona: The Fall will explore football legend Diego Maradona’s fall from grace following a failed drug test during the 1994 World Cup. Angus MacQueen, who helmed Netflix’s Maradona in Mexico, will direct.

• Green Lions tells the story of Cameroon at the 1990 World Cup, where Roger Milla & Co. upset Argentina in the opening match and became darlings of the tournament.

• Ronnie explores the redemption of (the original) Ronaldo in the wake of the mysterious 1998 World Cup final.

Amazon’s Prime Video Latam gets into the action on January 28 with the release of Mi Selección Colombia, an all-access series with los Cafeteros in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup that also delves into the national team’s colorful history. No idea if/when it might be available with English subtitles in the US.

• Fun fact: The six-part series is narrated by reggaeton star Maluma.

Staying in Latin America, HBO Max will release later this year Romário, o Cara, a series about the Brazilian legend who helped the Selecao win the 1994 World Cup. The former World Footballer of the Year scored goals for Barcelona, PSV, and several Brazilian clubs. He is now a state senator for Rio de Janeiro.