Beto is addicted, although to nothing in particular. He was an alcoholic, he was hooked on cocaine, countless women passed through his bed, most of them secretly... But that's already reformed, hasn't it? "He is addicted to everything, it is his way of understanding life and relating," explains Hugo Silva, who gives life to this former Real Madrid footballer turned player representative in the new HBO comedy MaxPollos sin cabeza.

The story was born from the curiosity of someone completely removed from the world of football, who has not seen a game in his life. Carolina Bang says that the subject was so omnipresent that she needed to know what was going on behind it. So, together with Álex de la Iglesia, he went to whoever could dig well behind the scenes: Jorge Valdano Sáenz, scriptwriter son of the former Argentine footballer and coach. The result is, he argues, "a dramatic or bittersweet comedy" that mercilessly portrays the shames of a universe tremendously far from the glamour it sells.

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Kira Miró.

"I lived a stage of absolute emptiness. At a certain age, you stop being the good aunt and no one calls you."

  • Writing: IÑAKO DÍAZ-GUERRA Madrid

"I lived a stage of absolute emptiness. At a certain age, you stop being the good aunt and no one calls you."

A phrase of the protagonist in a moment of alcohol weakness summarizes the essence of Headless Chickens: "Fame is all they want, a cochazo at the door of their house and fuck it all the time".

We laugh at all that jungle that surrounds football, how it ends up spoiling how beautiful the game is.

Jorge Valdano Sáenz, Creative Executive Producer

And it is that the criticism is ruthless: of the Brazilian crack of Real Madrid so comfortable in his mansion decorated with motifs inspired by his penis and surrounded by cousins that he does not remember when he scored the last goal to the explosive star of television, embodied by Kira Miró, retreaded to the absurd and willing to do anything for an exclusive, Going through the outdated player who was once someone and has landed in a modest club to drown the end of his career in drugs and alcohol while nobody wants to know anything about him anymore.

Trailer of the series 'Headless chickens'. HBO MAX

Just in case, Valdano puts aside any shadow of doubt: "There is nothing in the series that is based on a real character or a real anecdote." "Headless chickens laughs at all that jungle, at that human zoo that surrounds football, seeks to demystify a world that takes itself tremendously seriously," he says, "in the end, everything that surrounds football ends up spoiling how beautiful the game is, I have not left anything in the inkwell. "

His father, who makes a cameo with tribute included in the first chapter, has not yet seen the series, but would agree with the critics: "It aligns a lot with that idea," says the screenwriter Valdano, and remembers, in case the flies: "I have not gutted anything he has told me, I already say that it is all pure fiction."

Footballers have to learn to manage fame and money in a very short space of time. They greet me on the street like a cousin, they throw themselves on them

Hugo Silva, protagonist

From that cameo of Valdano father Hugo Silva received the last keys to build a character that belongs to a universe that is completely alien to him, but that was written to his measure: "I am absolutely nothing footballer". His Alberto Martin, alias Beto, is the perfect antihero. "It's full of flaws, but a flawless character is a joke to play and watch."

Kira Miró plays a journalist willing to do anything for an exclusive. MANOLO PAVÓNHBO MAX

The guirigay seasoned with psychotropics and sex, even only imagined, of Headless Chickens focuses its plot in the back room of football, but could look at any profession in which power and money are handled. For Silva, the atmosphere reminds him of a large corporation, "look at Succession"; to Valdano, to the reggaeton idols, "look at Maluma". And the star system of Spanish cinema? "Actors don't handle that much money," Bang said.

Instead of football we could be talking about music. Cinema? No, actors don't handle that much money

Carolina Bang, executive producer

"Footballers are very young people with a very short career and they have to learn to manage fame and money in a very short space of time, for that you need a much more powerful mental strength. It is incomparable with our environment," Hugo Silva abounds, "people greet me on the street as if I were a cousin, but they are thrown on top of them."

The cartoon is so extreme that it is impossible not to offend anyone, but the creators of the new fiction of the De la Iglesia/Bang factory have the perfect shield: "We laugh at everything and that saves us," says Valdano, "from the Brazilians, from the Argentines, from the Spaniards, of course... If you show that you can laugh at everything, you earn the right to do so."

Hugo Silva tries to redirect the career of a wayward star of Real Madrid.MANOLO PAVÓNHBO MAX

Society is prepared for a player to come out of the closet but the world of football, does not

Jorge Valdano Saenz

We said at the beginning that Beto is addicted, and also a bit of a loser, a man who tries to do good but to whom fate is not always favorable. In his career as a representative of footballers, and after his biggest star leaves him stranded, an intimate video leaked to the press threatens to sweep away any new opportunity. An intimate video of a Real Madrid player having sex with another man, by the way, that Headless Chickens is comedy, yes, but it contains a lot of message.

Would Spain be prepared for an exit from the closet in the elite of the king sport? Valdano does not cut himself: "Society would be prepared, but football has been completely left behind, with codes of masculinity that have not yet been broken. The character does not even consider the possibility of being the first and becoming an icon and there is the criticism, but the moment a frontline player is encouraged to take the step, I am convinced that there will be a before and after. " Without wishing to make spoiler, the series does not seem to go in those directions ...

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