BEIRUT: The captain of Lebanon’s national football team, Hassan Maatouk, is set to star in a new series of documentaries, co-produced by FIFA, about some of the biggest names in the game.
As its name suggests, “Six Captains” tells the stories of a sextet of players — each from a different continent — who at the time of filming, during qualification for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, were captains of their national sides.
Maatouk, who plays his league games for Al-Ansar FC in Beirut, was selected to represent Asia by the sport’s international governing body and British production company Fulwell 73, his club said.
In a statement released on Instagram, Al-Ansar said it was “a brilliant choice” to have their player feature in the film, alongside such greats as Real Madrid’s Luka Modric, who captains the Croatian national side.
Each of the six episodes, which will be released by Netflix and also shown on FIFA’s own platform, will provide football fans with a rare insight into the players’ private and professional lives.
All of the footage, which includes the players interacting with teammates at the national and club level, was shot over the course of a year, Al-Ansar said.
Arab News was unable to reach Maatouk for a comment on Friday, but Lebanese football fan Toufic Al-Turk said he was delighted to see his national team captain featured in the show.
“Being chosen by FIFA among other world class players, is an honor for Lebanese football in general and Maatouk in particular,” he said.
“He is a good and respectable player on and off the pitch.”
Sports writer Ali Ahmad agreed, saying that being chosen for such an important production was “one of the best accolades a footballer could ever receive.”
“Maatouk is well known as a midfielder in Asia. For him to be profiled along five international footballers in a movie about the World Cup is something so special,” he said.
Also featured in the series are former Gabon captain Pierre Emeric Aubameyang, Brazil’s Thiago Silva, Brian Kaltak of Vanuatu and Andre Blake of Jamaica.
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Lebanon’s captain Hassan Maatouk to star in Netflix football documentary
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Lebanon’s captain Hassan Maatouk to star in Netflix football documentary
- Midfielder will appear in ‘Six Captains’ alongside soccer greats like Luka Modric, Thiago Silva
- Series will provide rare insight into players’ private, professional lives
Football returns to Gaza pitch scarred by war and loss
- Fans gather to cheer the first football tournament in two years in the ruins of Gaza City’s Tal Al-Hawa district
- 'No matter what happened in terms of destruction and genocidal war, we continue with playing,' Gazan footballer says
On a worn-out five-a-side pitch in a wasteland of ruined buildings and rubble, Jabalia Youth took on Al-Sadaqa in the Gaza Strip’s first organized football tournament in more than two years.
The match ended in a draw, as did a second fixture featuring Beit Hanoun vs Al-Shujaiya. But the spectators were hardly disappointed, cheering and shaking the chain-link fence next to the Palestine Pitch in the ruins of Gaza City’s Tal Al-Hawa district.
Boys climbed a broken concrete wall or peered through holes in the ruins to get a look. Someone was banging on a drum.
Youssef Jendiya, 21, one of the Jabalia Youth players from a part of Gaza largely depopulated and bulldozed by Israeli forces, described his feeling at being back on the pitch: “Confused. Happy, sad, joyful, happy.”
“People search for water in the morning: food, bread. Life is a little difficult. But there is a little left of the day, when you can come and play football and express some of the joy inside you,” he said.
“You come to the stadium missing many of your teammates... killed, injured, or those who traveled for treatment. So the joy is incomplete.”
Four months since a ceasefire ended major fighting in Gaza, there has been almost no reconstruction. Israeli forces have ordered all residents out of nearly two-thirds of the strip, jamming more than 2 million people into a sliver of ruins along the coast, most in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.
The former site of Gaza City’s 9,000-seat Yarmouk Stadium, which Israeli forces levelled during the war and used as a detention center, now houses displaced families in white tents, crowded in the brown dirt of what was once the pitch.
For this week’s tournament the Football Association managed to clear the rubble from a collapsed wall off a half-sized pitch, put up a fence and sweep the debris off the old artificial turf.
By coming out, the teams were “delivering a message,” said Amjad Abu Awda, 31, a player for Beit Hanoun. “That no matter what happened in terms of destruction and genocidal war, we continue with playing, and with life. Life must continue.”
The match ended in a draw, as did a second fixture featuring Beit Hanoun vs Al-Shujaiya. But the spectators were hardly disappointed, cheering and shaking the chain-link fence next to the Palestine Pitch in the ruins of Gaza City’s Tal Al-Hawa district.
Boys climbed a broken concrete wall or peered through holes in the ruins to get a look. Someone was banging on a drum.
Youssef Jendiya, 21, one of the Jabalia Youth players from a part of Gaza largely depopulated and bulldozed by Israeli forces, described his feeling at being back on the pitch: “Confused. Happy, sad, joyful, happy.”
“People search for water in the morning: food, bread. Life is a little difficult. But there is a little left of the day, when you can come and play football and express some of the joy inside you,” he said.
“You come to the stadium missing many of your teammates... killed, injured, or those who traveled for treatment. So the joy is incomplete.”
Four months since a ceasefire ended major fighting in Gaza, there has been almost no reconstruction. Israeli forces have ordered all residents out of nearly two-thirds of the strip, jamming more than 2 million people into a sliver of ruins along the coast, most in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.
The former site of Gaza City’s 9,000-seat Yarmouk Stadium, which Israeli forces levelled during the war and used as a detention center, now houses displaced families in white tents, crowded in the brown dirt of what was once the pitch.
For this week’s tournament the Football Association managed to clear the rubble from a collapsed wall off a half-sized pitch, put up a fence and sweep the debris off the old artificial turf.
By coming out, the teams were “delivering a message,” said Amjad Abu Awda, 31, a player for Beit Hanoun. “That no matter what happened in terms of destruction and genocidal war, we continue with playing, and with life. Life must continue.”
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