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BEIRUT: The captain of Lebanon’s national football team, Hassan Maatouk, is set to star in a new series of documentaries, co-produced by FIFA, about some of the biggest names in the game.
As its name suggests, “Six Captains” tells the stories of a sextet of players — each from a different continent — who at the time of filming, during qualification for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, were captains of their national sides.
Maatouk, who plays his league games for Al-Ansar FC in Beirut, was selected to represent Asia by the sport’s international governing body and British production company Fulwell 73, his club said.
In a statement released on Instagram, Al-Ansar said it was “a brilliant choice” to have their player feature in the film, alongside such greats as Real Madrid’s Luka Modric, who captains the Croatian national side.
Each of the six episodes, which will be released by Netflix and also shown on FIFA’s own platform, will provide football fans with a rare insight into the players’ private and professional lives.
All of the footage, which includes the players interacting with teammates at the national and club level, was shot over the course of a year, Al-Ansar said.
Arab News was unable to reach Maatouk for a comment on Friday, but Lebanese football fan Toufic Al-Turk said he was delighted to see his national team captain featured in the show.
“Being chosen by FIFA among other world class players, is an honor for Lebanese football in general and Maatouk in particular,” he said.
“He is a good and respectable player on and off the pitch.”
Sports writer Ali Ahmad agreed, saying that being chosen for such an important production was “one of the best accolades a footballer could ever receive.”
“Maatouk is well known as a midfielder in Asia. For him to be profiled along five international footballers in a movie about the World Cup is something so special,” he said.
Also featured in the series are former Gabon captain Pierre Emeric Aubameyang, Brazil’s Thiago Silva, Brian Kaltak of Vanuatu and Andre Blake of Jamaica.