Glamour in football is often the assumption those on the outside make: all the money, fame, adulation and free time you could wish for while making your favourite hobby a job. Yet Leeds United’s new documentary goes some way to shining a light on what life can be like for the club’s players away from the floodlights.
Academy Dreams is released today, telling the story of last season for United’s under-23s. The likes of Joe Gelhardt, Sam Greenwood and Charlie Cresswell are captured from all angles with access to cameras in the dressing room, their homes, the training ground and the team bus.
How the players interact with one another away from the pitch is one of the key perspectives viewers will see for the first time in this documentary. Ahead of the six-parter’s release, Gelhardt explained how that social time with one another has been so crucial for new recruits moving away from their families for the first time at 17 or 18-years-old.
