“I’ve been playing for the national team since I was 17,” says Hassan Maatouk, the captain of Lebanon’s men’s football team. “I used to dream of wearing the Lebanese shirt, and representing my country. And now I’m 35 and I have played nearly 100 games, and I am captain of the team.”
Hasan Maatouk is one of the six main characters starring in the new Captains a new eight-episode documentary series co-produced by FIFA, Netflix and Fulwell 73 Productions.
The series highlights six national team captains, each coming from a different continent, and focuses on their professional and personal lives during qualification for the Qatar 2022 World Cup finals.
Alongside Hassan Maatouk (who plays for Beirut-based club Al-Ansar FC), is former Ballon d’Or winner, Luka Modrić (Croatia); Tiago Silva (Brazil); Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon); Brian Kaltak (Vanuatu); and Andre Blake (Jamaica). Maatouk was selected to represent Asia by the sport’s international governing body.
Lebanon has never qualified for a football World Cup, and throughout the docuseries the importance of that is not lost on Maatouk.
“If we could qualify it could really affect the people,” explains Maatouk during the show’s second episode. “Let them forget their struggles for a moment and feel joy or fun.”
The show tackles how veteran players juggle family life with the expectations of a nation, aiming to shine a light on the complex psychology behind performing at the very highest level.
Despite the fact that we know Lebanon did not qualify for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the docuseries offers a fascinating look behind the scenes of what it is like for the country as it attempts to qualify under the most challenging real-life challenges.
Series Two of the docuseries has already been commissioned, with a set of soon to be revealed captains whose lives will be documented during the World Cup in Qatar itself.