2024

S1.E1 ∙ Que empiece el show

Sun, Sep 29, 2024

July 2023. Paris Saint Germain are failing in their perpetual attempts to dominate European Football. Not even uniting Messi, Neymar and Sergio Ramos with Kylian Mbappé has been nearly enough to win PSG's first-ever Champions League. Now it's time to smash the player-power, cleanse the dressing room, reengage with the fans, and establish a completely new, football-driven, identity. There's only one man for the job: Luís Enrique 'Lucho' Martínez . Even once PSG persuade the Spaniard that they've abandoned the star-culture which has always been anathema to him, the outlook still looks brutal. Messi has left, Verratti and Neymar must be pushed out and the board is at war with their best player - Kylian Mbappé - who's excluded from training. It's all on Lucho's shoulders while he tries to learn French, lives 24 hours a day at the PSG training centre, copes with his family's fears and snaps back at vicious media criticism of the team's initial results. Paris are stunned by the energy and ambition of man they've hired. But as Episode 1 ends, Luis Enrique's PSG are on the verge of being disastrously eliminated from the Champions League and we take you snide his all-or-nothing team-talk.

7.9 /10

S1.E2 ∙ C'est Catastrophique

Sun, Oct 06, 2024

It's gone down to the wire, right to the final second of Match 6 in Dortmund, but PSG are through to the Champions League knockout rounds. The stress has taken a toll, and Luis Enrique is desperate not to live 24 hours a day seven days a week at the training ground - we see how a family home is secured. The next rival is Spanish, and we take you inside the PSG dressing room to witness the coach's furious reaction towards his team failing to play as instructed. An open secret is confirmed: news emerges that Mbappé has decided to join Real Madrid at the end of the season. How will the team cope, how will Mbappé react, and what will the authoritarian Luis Enrique do if he believes his star striker is distracted? But, next, there's the enormous stress of being drawn to face the club he played for, and managed - FC Barcelona. Only his family, and viewers of this episode, will fully understand the emotional and mental cost to Lucho of going head-to-head with Xavi's Spanish champions. For PSG to reach the semi-final it's imperative the coach harnesses all of Mbappé's world-class talent - and also convinces him to give much more than he's been doing in the last few games.

8.1 /10

S1.E3 ∙ Xana

Sun, Oct 13, 2024

Having lost at home to Barça the version of PSG which Luis Enrique has been building erupts in a masterful display of football in Barcelona destroying Xavi's team and reaching the Champions League last four. All Lucho's detailed tactical analysis and strategic planning pay off spectacularly well, (which he shares with us via exclusive footage) and now the Paris fans acclaim the Asturian 54 year old as their spiritual leader - the guru who can guide them to self-respect, pride and, potentially, European glory. In the background, Catalan fans and media are angered by his victory celebrations. Now it's Dortmund again, that thorny rival from the 'group of death', and bad times are in store. Are PSG cursed? Or was it just fate that they hit the goal frame SO many times across the two games. But the most intense and moving parts of these three episodes are how Luis Enrique puts this experience, and life's vicissitudes, in context by explaining how he and his family coped, adapted, and became even more united following the illness and eventual death in 2019 of little Xana - Luis and Elena's younger daughter. "She was incredible. Very competitive, brave, funny... she was just like her dad". An intimate, sad yet uplifting way to end these episodes as Lucho and family remember Xana's life and launch a foundation in her memory.

8.5 /10