Cannes 2026 – The Match ★★★★

Released: TBC

Directors: Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco

The 2026 World Cup is underway and if it produces a match half as controversial, iconic, and as talked about as one from 40 years ago, it will be a memorable tournament. You don’t have to be a football fan to find this documentary about a match during the 1986 World Cup thoroughly absorbing, informative and plain enjoyable. 

You want a bit of history? Some geopolitics? A clash of cultures between Latin passion and English reserve? The greatest goal from greatest player in the world?  Well, you get it all in this 91 minute documentary directed by Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco.

The match in question? A quarterfinal between England and Argentina which took place at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico. It featured two goals from the late, legendary and very great, Argentinian player Diego Maradona. One goal is considered a masterpiece of football strategy, control of the ball and execution. The other was the infamous “Hand of God,”.

The film starts with dramatic silvertone footage of football boots, goalkeeper gloves, montage shots of former players such as Gary Lineker, Peter Shilton and John Barnes looking pensive.  It all portends something more than just a game of two halves. Instead, it’s the game that was described, even at the time, as a match in which two countries were drawn together by a ball but divided by flags.

So, in this film, the match, important as it was, for the players and the fans watching in both countries, is placed in the wider and bigger context of a 200 year history of conflict between the two nations, culminating in the dispute over the Falkland Islands (or as the Argentinians call them, the Malvinas) which had led to war in 1982.  It became then, a match that was not just for sporting pride and glory but for national honour. While the match itself is reconstructed as a living memory by those who took part in it, the film takes us on a broader historical journey of why it meant so much, not only to the participants, but also the populations of each country.

In doing so, the film gives itself an appeal beyond what happens on the football pitch. We see archival footage, not only of the players but also charismatic political leadership of a calibre that is sorely missing in today’s governments, in the forms of Leopoldo Galtieri and Margaret Thatcher, patriotism, passion and rousing language that would be frowned upon today and the calm narration of hindsight from the men who played in the game. Now in their 60s, they get to talk about the build-up to the match, how they felt then and how they feel about it now. The reflective reminiscences are filmed in black-and-white, the build-up to the match at the time, is shown in the the muted but garish film colour of its day.

The documentary offers a wide ranging dissection of a moment in popular culture that is both wistful memory and a bringing back to life the thrill and excitement of it, as it happened. In short, the film at 90 minutes is not unlike watching a football match. It sets up drama, the anticipation of something incredible coming, the dejection of hopes dashed, the beauty of sport that for a brief time drowns out the ugly world but sometimes can’t help but let in, the outrage as to why a goal ‘assisted’ by a volleyball type palm strike was not disallowed and then the thrilling crescendo of mesmerising sporting skill that creates a superlative goal run, the sheer audacity of which stays with you a lifetime.

It is indeed the beautiful game. And this is an unexpected Cannes gem.