The team is trying to reach new fans, and give less heralded players their moment in the sun.
As the fellow once said, reality ain’t as real as it used to be.
I kept returning to this thought while watching Under Pressure, the TIME and FIFA-produced docuseries about the U.S. women’s national team’s progress through the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which debuts on Netflix on Tuesday.
Director Rebecca Gitlitz most likely sought to tell one kind of story, and thanks to the United States’ heartbreaking Round of 16 exit, was forced to tell an entirely different one. The tension of what really happened and what got reshaped into a four-part narrative becomes the central question of the series. Devoted readers of The Equalizer are unlikely to learn much new from the show. Audiences don’t seem to be flocking to sports documentaries these days, either. So if Netflix can’t engage the superfans or the unfamiliar-yet-curious, who exactly is Under Pressure for?
Under Pressure is a byproduct of the last decade of sports…
