Sumith Prasad
Netflix’s Spanish film ‘The Champion’ revolves around Atlético de Madrid’s new sensation, Diego, who gets suspended after hurting an opposition player during a soccer match. The suspension convinces his agent and club officials that the player needs to change mentally to be a well-behaved athlete. A psychology professor named Alejandro “Álex” Castro then gets hired to help Diego get better. The relationship between the two motivates them to overcome their own respective traumas and challenges. Diego’s “Atléti” is one of the greatest Spanish soccer clubs that exists in reality. However, when it comes to the protagonist, the forward cannot be spotted in the team’s locker room!
Diego: A Fictional Player Who Resembles Soccer Legends
Diego is a fictional character conceived by Joan Gual and Joaquín Oristrell, the screenwriters of ‘The Champion.’ Even though the forward is part of a real soccer club, the sports drama is primarily about overcoming setbacks in life through compassion and trust. The backdrop of a soccer team was chosen for the narrative seemingly because the sport is filled with challenges that shake the players to the core. Having said that, Diego is unignorably similar to some of the noteworthy soccer players of the last century, starting with arguably the greatest captain in the Premier League era, Roy Keane of Manchester United.
In the film, Diego gets suspended after stomping on an opposition player. Keane did the same thing highly similarly back in 2001. He kicked Manchester City’s Alfie Haaland intentionally, causing a life-altering injury. What makes Diego a younger version of Keane is that they both don’t regret their actions. “I did want to nail him [Haaland] and let him know what was happening. I wanted to hurt him and stand over him and go: ‘Take that, you c**t.’ I don’t regret that. But I had no wish to injure him,” Keane said about the incident, as per The Guardian.
Diego’s altercation at the tunnel right after he attacks the opposition player reminds us of another incident involving Keane. In 2005, he nearly started a fight against Arsenal’s Patrick Vieira by shouting at the latter. What differentiates these two incidents is that Diego turns against his own teammate while Keane, in real life, confronted an opposition player. When it comes to Atlético de Madrid, Diego has to be paralleled with Diego Costa, who led the line for the Spanish club like the fictional character for years. In 2012, he headbutted opponent David Limberský of Viktoria Plzeň to receive a four-match ban.
Two years later, Costa once again received a ban for hurting Emre Can of Liverpool, which left him on the sidelines for three matches. Luis Suárez, who helped Atlético de Madrid win La Liga in the 2020-2021 season, is infamous for biting opposition players on three occasions, most notably in 2014 when he bit Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini.
Diego and the Heat of the Moment
‘The Champion’ establishes Diego’s highly volatile nature through a fight between him and his own captain. It is one thing to confront one’s opponent, but an entirely concerning thing to fight your own teammate. Over the years, several soccer players have done the same, which makes it clear how competitive and provoking the world of the “beautiful game” is. In the film, Diego’s agent and father plot the sale of the player to Manchester City, a club with ample history of player fights. In 2007, City’s Joey Barton and Ousmane Dabo were involved in an altercation, only for the latter to suffer a detached retina.
Barton received a four-month suspended jail sentence and a six-match ban because of the fight. Newcastle United’s Kieron Dyer’s fistfight against Lee Bowyer and West Ham United’s John Hartson’s kick against Eyal Berkovic are some of the other examples of teammates turning against each other. These incidents show us that soccer can get bloody even within a team where harmony is supposed to exist. Players need to strategize not only their approach to the game but also the way they calm their nerves to finish a match without unfavorable incidents. By conceiving Diego as a soccer player, Joan Gual and Joaquín Oristrell succeeded in integrating these intricacies of the sport into the story arc, which makes the character’s redemption arc all the more affecting.
Read More: The Champion: Is the Netflix Movie Inspired By True Events?
