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This article is also available in: Italiano

One of the most interesting and most successful films on amateur football, which will allow us to discover the passion of the Parisian Banlieues, the birthplace of many football superstars

Ballon sur bitume

The development of professional football on a global scale owes much to the “football” played on the streets of France.

The real football

This documentary will allow us to better discover the football reality of the Parisian Banlieue, from which many French champions come. A hard, cold and often poor reality, in which the ball is the only real means of redemption, the only possibility of communicating with a world that seems to know only the law of dribbling.

Very interesting that the documentary also shows us some of the unwritten laws that populate this universe in its own right, putting the field and style at the center. To say: the one who scores a lot of goals is no longer good, but the one who dribbles everyone and dresses well. The ball here acquires a mythical role, it is something that does not belong to the (sad) everyday life, but has its own role, its own specific place in the universe, capable of giving a magical area to everything. that touches.

Legends of the suburbs

Watching this documentary we observe a football that is now almost impossible to find in the Bel Paese, in which the legends are mostly television ones, in crazy and “standard” stadiums. In “Ballon sur bitume” “San Siro“, to say, it is not that of Milan, but that of Argentueil, a field which, however, here, takes on a mythological value even higher than the Milanese arena. It would be wrong to say “like in Naples” because, even though the myth of Maradona is stronger than ever there, it is still “a single hero / saint”; here we are much closer to the medieval idea of “village hero”, each one has its own legend and its own history, transforming each game into battles between paladins.

Accompanying us on this journey (of just 50 minutes) will be professional football stars such as: Mahrez, Benatia and Aurier, as well as some great artists and rappers of the neighborhood. The combination is due to the fact that, at least from what is shown in the film, these two are the real careers for those coming from these places; It is not by chance, in fact, that there is a very strong connection between the two worlds, so much so that many artists have long shared the field with future football superstars. Unfortunately, at the end, Ferhat Cicek, educator of various local teams, reminds us of one thing: only 1 boy out of 5,000 actually becomes a professional; a tremendous fact but which, as the educator himself recalls, it is better to mention in order not to sell dreams.

Very beautiful, intense and true, available on Netflix Italy only until August 31, 2020, an opportunity not to be missed.

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