SIEMPRE+POSITIVO
2024 · 14m · España
Directed by Nacho Solana
Genres: biography, documentary, sports
Tones: contemplative, tender
Football manager Louis van Gaal, remembered for a famously negative press-conference line, meets scientist María Blasco after overcoming cancer during a World Cup and shows that his attitude is, in fact, always positive.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a redemption narrative dressed up in sports-doc clothing, which sounds like the worst possible combination until you realize the film's actually arguing that negativity and positivity are the same philosophical coin—except it never quite commits to that provocation, so it just becomes a nice profile instead.
Solana situates this within the grand lineage of sports portraiture and philosophical biography, using the Van Gaal-Blasco pairing as a formal conceit that generates real tension between athletic defeat and scientific resilience—the tender editing rhythm earns its contemplative register.
The decision to let silence sit between Van Gaal's infamous line and Blasco's quiet presence—rather than rushing to reconcile them—does all the heavy lifting; it's the kind of structural restraint that makes a modest 14 minutes feel inevitable.