Football is war (2018)

Directed by: Hans Heijnen | 83 minutes | documentary

There is a good chance that you have already seen fragments from the documentary ‘Voetbal is war’ in recent months. When director Hans Heijnen released a trailer, the images went viral at lightning speed, partly due to the unmistakable words of trainer Eric Meijers about his keeper (‘what a cunt keeper’) and the local media (‘kutkrant!’). The documentary follows a football club that is slowly going under due to its towering ambitions.

Achilles ’29 from Groesbeek is a club that has been active in the highest echelons of amateur football for many years. But the club, led by the eccentric Derks family (brothers Harrie and Frans and sister Elrie), wants more. They decide to use an experiment by the KNVB football association to apply for a professional license and promote in 2013 to the Eerste Divisie (the second highest professional level in the Netherlands).

The situation in 2018? A bankruptcy, an almost completely resigned group of players due to non-payment of salaries and an inglorious last place in the Third (!) Division. The ominous music in the opening scene of ‘Football is war’ sets the tone in that regard: the documentary chronicles an inevitable downfall.

The hilarious videos of a trainer who no longer seems to have his emotions under control, seem to aim for a somewhat crazy documentary; ‘Football is war’ is above all a tragic portrait of a club that is completely destroyed by the unstoppable ambitions of the Derks family. Shadowy constructions with Brazilian banks; arrests by the FIOD and the continuous pointing fingers at the media, KNVB and players: the picture that the documentary creates of the family is not exactly rosy.

But ‘Football is war’ is also an intimate portrait of an amateur club where old mastodons scrutinize the club while playing cards and where most supporters are not at all eager to play a professional club. It makes the image of the slowly crumbling club all the more poignant.

The ‘cuntkeeper’ images will probably follow trainer Eric Meijers for the rest of his career, although the documentary also offers some nuance in the resulting image of the trainer, especially because he has also become entangled in the web of an overambitious family. . For example, the fact that one of the Derks brothers turns out to be a dictatorial assistant coach is a lot more poignant, and the shining example of the rather unhealthy influence of the family on the club. ‘Football is War’ can therefore be read indirectly much more as an indictment against the Derks family’s way of acting, than as an easily scoring documentary that wants to embarrass a trainer.

‘Football is War’ is a fascinating portrait of a football club where the pride of a family caused a thunderous fall into the deep end. Director Hans Heijnen must have felt like a kid in a candy store when he was allowed to film almost everything during the disastrous relegation season. In ‘Football is War’ Damocles’ sword falls mercilessly hard: after all, there is not much left of Achilles ’29. What has it yielded? An endlessly intriguing, at times tragicomic documentary that can serve as teaching material for any football club that wants to live beyond its means in order to move up the ladder. Biggest Losers? The supporters, who prefer to just watch a game and were not at all waiting for hassle about millions of loans and professional licenses.