We have all seen or heard of parents who can’t seem to control themselves when they watch their kids play sports. They scream and yell from the stands, they argue with refs and umpires, they may even be ejected from the field. A new Dutch comedy puts a parent who’s more like most of us — in other words, just wants to see her kid have fun — in the middle of a group of particularly annoying and overbearing sports parents.
Opening Shot: Scenes of kids playing soccer, and their parents cheering for them and egging them on. Then most of the parents start getting into a fight with a referee whose call they disagree with. One parent looks on in amazement.
The Gist: Two months earlier, that same parent, Lilian (Eva Van Gessel) and her husband Ramadne (Edwin Jonker), are bringing their son Levi (Yosef Weijers) to a practice for a new soccer team; the family is new in town.
The more overbearing parents of the kids on the team get wind that there will be a couple of new kids and they voice their concern over their kids’ playing time getting cut. Jacco (Bas Hoeflaak), the coach, tells everyone that he’s only coaching on game day, for mental health reasons. The team will be trained by Yusuf (Gürkan Küçüksentürk), who passes out new rules for everyone to follow, including having the players shower and change underwear after matches.
Another parent, the hippie-dippie Marenka (Ilse Warringa), will manage the team’s day-to-day, including driving everyone nuts on the team’s text chain. She’s a sunny, talkative presence — perhaps too talkative. And her quirky son Vito (Seb Van Gemert) is also going to play, much to the consternation of the other parents.
Despite the fact that Ramadne was a pro footballer, he doesn’t have much desire to see Levi practice or play in matches. That leaves Lillian to have to deal with the parents, something she absolutely hates having to do. She tries to tell everyone that they’re going to try out different teams, but once Levi and Vito becomes friends, that goes by the wayside.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Football Parents, written by Ilse Warringa, has the rapid-fire tone of comedies like Modern Family.
Our Take: There are story elements of Football Parents that have some emotional resonance, like the struggle Lilian has to get Ramadne interested in Levi’s soccer matches, but for the most part, the show is rife with broadly-written characters who are mostly there to be pain-in-the-ass parents who seem to be more involved in the matches than their kids are.
Arlette (Mariana Aparicio) and Sandra (Leonor Koster) are the most vocal of the parents, and openly wonder if Surinamese kids like Levi shower in the nude. Boris (Arnoud Bos) thinks his son is too good to practice. Edwin (Guido Pollemans) is obsessed with the fact that Levi’s dad is a pro footballer. Ellen (Nynke Beekuhyzen) brings headphones to block out all the noise, even though she makes plenty if her son isn’t getting enough playing time.
They will all get their moments, but it seems like the main players are going to be Lilian and Marenka. Ilse Warringa is fun to watch as the hyper-attentive Marenka, who wants to dole out hugs and give kids burned toasties because she doesn’t want to waste food. The other parents don’t seem to hide their disdain for her and for Vito, who is the kind of kid who’d rather pick dandelions than actually play offense or defense.
What we’re curious about is if Lilian and Marenka become unlikely friends as the team tries to get noticed by the selection committee that will put them in a regional tournament. It feels like that’s the way the story is going, even if the only reason why they become friends is because Lilian can’t stand the other parents and how vicious they are towards Marenka and Vito. Will their viciousness get old before we get to that point? That’s the thing we’re not sure about.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: As everyone celebrates a victory after the first match of the season (thanks to Levi), we see rapid-fire texts from Marenka, as well as all of the chatter from the other parents. Lilian has a look of resignation on her face that she’s going to have to spend a lot of time with this group of crazy parents.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Seb Van Gemert and Yosef Weijers, who play Vito and Levi. because they’re playing kids who each have their own parental baggage, and they seem to deal with that baggage in different ways.
Most Pilot-y Line: For some reason, Marenka takes a lot of time to hear Lilian’s name correctly, then decides to call her “Leil.” It’s not that hard of a name, Markenka!
Our Call: STREAM IT. Football Parents is a mostly-funny show that anyone who has dealt with overbearing sports parents can relate to. What we wonder is if we’ll get tired of the antics of the most intrusive of the parental group before the season is over.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.