With the faith in humanity-restoring Ted Lasso reportedly hanging up its football (or soccer) boots at the end of the current third season, there’ll soon be a gap in the streaming market for a comedy about the so-called beautiful game. Step forward HBO Max’s latest Spanish original, Headless Chickens.
The seven-part series has an impressive pedigree. Director Alex de la Iglesias and co-creator Jorge Valdano Saénz previously worked together on Messi, the acclaimed 2014 documentary about – sorry Ronaldo fans – the greatest player of the modern era. That perhaps explains why the machinations of the sport are explored a little more credibly than the adventures of Richmond FC. There’s no one being promoted from kitman to top-flight manager a la Nate Shelley in the space of a few months here.
There is, however, still a forty-something mustachioed (albeit not quite as bushy as Jason Sudeikis’) man with a point to prove and several demons to battle. Indeed, Headless Chickens (Spanish title: Pollos sin cabeza) is largely seen through the eyes of Beto Martin (Hugo Silva), a disgraced former La Liga player now attempting to influence the Spanish league as the head of a top-tier agency.
The first two episodes provides several laughs skewering the egos of the prima donnas on his books. We’re first introduced to Beto’s number one protege Willy (Óscar Casas) after a Viagra overdose just hours before he’s due to be paraded in front of the nation’s press sends him into a blind panic (“I’m gonna lose my d***. I’ll look like a Playmobil”).
New signing Nardinho (Diogo Salas) is similarly sex-obsessed, adorning his super-sized mansion with ornaments, pepper shakers and shower installations modeled on his manhood. Iglesias recently told Variety “it’s fun to lose some respect for big soccer players” and their depiction as narcissistic, spoiled, overgrown men-children certainly leaves little to admire.
Don’t expect any Jamie Tartt-style redemptive arcs, either. Headless Chickens has little interest in rehabilitating its damaged characters off the field of play (we never actually see their exploits on it, perhaps a wise decision considering how difficult it is to replicate the match experience in a fictional setting).
Nardinho, for example, exposes himself as a self-hating homophobe following an encounter with a male masseuse that goes viral. Willy only gets fickler, dropping the man who paid for his father’s funeral to sign with Martinelli (Miguel Ángel Solá), an unscrupulous rival agent who treats his clientele with willful disdain (“They’re all aces inside the field, off it they’re morons with power”). At one point, Headless Chickens promises to turn into a Spanish football version of this year’s breakout Netflix hit Beef as Beto and Martinelli try to one-up each other in increasingly unhinged ways.
Other than Beto’s put-upon girlfriend Sonia (Dafne Fernández) and the agency’s amenable staff members, the rest of the cast are similarly hard to root for. Beto forgoes any viewer sympathy when he gives into the temptation of both an old flame and his old drug of choice: although in his defense, he’s practically coerced into snorting coke by everyone he meets. Mariajo (Kira Miró) is both the ex-wife and mother from hell, reveling in her former husband’s fall from sobriety on her salacious daytime talk show before leaking her youngest daughter’s sex tape online to further boost her fame. And their two teenage kids are unashamed brats with a complete disregard for any kind of family loyalty.
It’s a shame Headless Chickens soon leans in more toward Beto’s messy private life than his more interesting professional. Initially echoing Ted Lasso’s divisive Coach Beard-led “After Hours,” the third episode centers on a night of debauchery at Nardinho’s birthday bash. Rather than hula hooping to some anthemic EDM, though, there are glory holes, accidental shootings and a groanworthy drug sequence in which Beto and the embarrassing old friend who spikes his drink are turned into puppets. As with most screen hallucinatory trips, it looks more fun to have made than to sit through.
The show continues to suffer an identity crisis from them on. Its fourth episode throws in multiple flashbacks and fake-outs while revealing the origins story of Beto and his longtime right-hand man Miguel (Gorka Otxoa) as well as how they recently came to blows. Episode five, meanwhile, turns into a half-hearted horror comedy as Beto’s romantic getaway is gatecrashed by his terrible daughters, a lovestruck Willy and a woodland bear.
And there are distant echoes of It’s a Wonderful Life in episode six as Beto is visited by the ghost of a recently deceased pal to help him come to terms with two serious car crashes: the one that’s left him temporarily hospital bed-ridden and the other that put pay to his promising career. By the time it gets back to business for the finale revolving around the Player of the Year Awards, the show has lost nearly all of its early momentum. Should we care whether Nardinho gets to make an acceptance speech when he’s been sidelined for half the show’s run?
Perhaps de la Iglesias and co. were conscious of the fact they’d be compared to Apple TV+’s finest? Yet with its darker undercurrent – the superior first two episodes also touch upon the sport’s uncomfortable ties with the gambling industry and manipulation of impressionable young players – and far more risqué sense of humor, it had already positioned itself as an edgier alternative.
If the show had played better to its strengths, HBO Max may have had a winner on its hands. Instead, it resembles a team that’s squandered a two-goal advantage. Ultimately, the Cambridge Dictionary definition of ‘headless chicken’ says it best: “to be very busy doing a lot of things, but in a way that is not very effective.”
Jon O’Brien (@jonobrien81) is a freelance entertainment and sports writer from the North West of England. His work has appeared in the likes of Billboard, Vulture, Grammy Awards, New Scientist, Paste, i-D and The Guardian.