‘I sometimes have bursts of hatred towards these idiots…’
Netflix has dipped its toe into the world of football documentaries before, most notably with Sunderland ‘Til I Die and Beckham, but 2026 has seen the streaming service expand into this area in much more depth with films about Jamie Vardy, Vinnie Jones and Liverpool’s famous 2005 Champions League victory in Istanbul. Going slightly under the radar in the face of its more splashy counterparts is The Bus: A French Football Mutiny from directors Christophe Astruc and Jérôme Fritel. It’s an astonishing and incredibly French tale of incompetence, betrayal and defeat…
During the 2010 World Cup, noted eccentric Raymond Domenech, a man who proposed to his girlfriend during a television interview and refused to pick certain players due to their star signs, led a disastrous campaign that culminated in the entire squad refusing to train and instead returning to their team bus to sit it out. The Bus dives into this comic farce through interviews with Domenech, as well as prominent squad members Patrice Evra, William Gallas and Bacary Sagna.
What becomes clear within five minutes of watching The Bus is that Domenech makes for incredible television. Every clip of his speaking to the camera seems to become more and more unhinged to the point that it becomes impossible to imagine how this man came to manage the French football team in the first place. Indeed, one of the only criticisms I can level at Astruc and Fritel’s film is that it would have been helpful to have a little more background into Domenech’s appointment and subsequent performance as France boss, but this is a minor complaint about what is otherwise a consistently compelling and frequently unbelievable football documentary.
Given that the main thing the players were objecting to was the treatment and subsequent vilification of star striker Nicolas Anelka, it is perhaps odd that the man himself doesn’t appear, but it’s highly probable that the man known throughout his career as Le Sulk probably didn’t want to speak about what must have been a very difficult time (he was banned for 18 matches for his part in the mutiny). But there are enough insightful and revealing interviews elsewhere to make The Bus successful. There’s even a mystery to be solved (who leaked information about the clash between Domenech and Anelka to the press) that ensures that this odd little documentary is compelling right until the end.
In a world in which football is increasingly becoming unwatchable, we can expect more documentaries about the sport’s golden age over the coming months. If they are anything like this one, we’re in for a treat.
