“Pep playing himself is a bit like having Robert De Niro play a football coach.”
Those are the musings of Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald, who has just spent two years charting the exploits of Pep Guardiola and Manchester City for A Beautiful Obsession and yet had barely heard of Guardiola before he was brought on board by Prime Video, Plan B, Workerbee and City Studios.
“He wears his heart on his sleeve,” said Macdonald. “He’s just so compelling to watch.”
Macdonald, whose subjects have included Whitney Houston and Bob Marley, and who won an Oscar for One Day in September, believes his lack of interest in soccer was advantageous when following one of the greatest managers of all time. The docuseries charts Guardiola’s tumultuous final two seasons after winning an English record four Premier League titles in a row and follows in a long line of Amazon sports docs about soccer teams, although this one isn’t part of the streamer’s successful All or Nothing strand.
“There’s something quite good about asking stupid questions,” Macdonald told Deadline. “I told him I didn’t know much about football and the weird thing was that really engaged him. He was like, ‘Oh my god I’m so fed up with talking about football.’ So we talked about books, films and all sorts of other things.”
Macdonald’s disinterest in the UK’s national sport echoes that of Fisher Stevens, who directed Netflix’s smash hit Beckham documentary several years back and has also said in the past he didn’t know much about soccer when he took up the gig.
It allowed Macdonald to get under Guardiola’s skin, the Scottish director explained. “I asked why he was so interested and why the players cared so much,” added Macdonald, who spent hours observing with the legendary Spanish coach, met him five times and interviewed him three times. “We tried to make a series that was emotional and human, and saw these players go through really dramatic events. I hope the series will be enjoyed by people who aren’t football fans, but are just interested in the human drama.”
That drama came during the first few months of the period being covered in the doc as Guardiola, fresh off the back of his GOAT-like title quadruple, suddenly found results turning for the worst.
Gavin Johnson, Group Media Director at City Football Group, who oversees City Studios, said filming this period was “quite uncomfortable for people internally,” but the team was commited to keeping the cameras rolling.
“There is an acceptance at the top of the business that you have to tell deeper stories around the club and to do that you have to open yourself up,” said Johnson. “We’d had this amazing run and then we couldn’t stop losing for a short number of games and it was really really hard. Sometimes it was uncomfortable to watch but that is what makes good drama.”
Macdonald said this created “authenticity and honesty,” which contrasts with the “first wave” of popular streaming sports docs from a few years back that “were quite constructed and quite limited” in scope. “Fans see that every Saturday,” he added. “They want something more – a kind of observational, vérité documentary that is quite rare in other worlds.”
City Studios’ deep access comes from its unique position as an in-house Manchester City studio, chronicling the team all-year round.
“The team we’ve built at City haven’t shied away from any area but have done a wonderful job to build trust, catch all of the content and work within the parameters we have to work within,” said Johnson. “These are top sports individuals [we are following] who have to try and win games for Man City. But also they’re human beings and that is the essence of what Kevin Macdonald has scratched below the surface of.”
City Studios has a development deal with Sony Pictures Television for soccer content and Sony international boss Wayne Garvie has previously said he wants to find soccer’s Succession. Updating on the pact, Johnson said there are “three or four projects we are really excited about,” which lean on Garvie’s “expertise, contacts passion and knowledge,” but the world of scripted programming can be “frustratingly slow” compared with docs, he added.
Having won numerous titles at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, the 55-year-old is heading for a rare career break after turning down a job to manage the Italian national team. Macdonald said Guardiola is remarkably philosophical about the future.
“He’s coming to terms with the idea that you cannot be the best forever, but you need to understand and communicate to those around you that you have to enjoy life whether you are winning or losing,” added Macdonald. “In a way that is the philosophical underpinning of the series. This feels very authentic coming from Pep. I kept telling him he was a natural Buddhist.”
The docuseries launches August 19. It is directed by Macdonald alongside City Studios’ John De Caux and produced by Macdonald for Plan B/KM Films and Banijay UK-owned Workerbee, along with Johnson and Ged Doherty for City Studios.
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