Club América vs. Club América
2022 Series
Overview
This docuseries profiles unique and dangerous traditional sports from around the world, as well as the communities and cultures where they thrive.
Seasons
- Status
- Ended
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 8 episodes
- First aired
- Jun 26, 2020
Reviews
5 min readThe World in a Goat Carcass
I’ve spent most of my life thinking of sports as something that happens in stadiums, on courts, or in arenas—places with lines painted on the ground and referees in striped shirts. Home Game, Netflix’s 2020 documentary series, doesn’t just widen that frame; it shatters it. Over eight episodes, each roughly the length of a lunch break, the series introduces us to sports that exist at the edges of the map, where competition isn’t just about winning but about survival, tradition, and the stubborn refusal to let the past die. It’s less a travelogue than a series of dispatches from the places where the human body is pushed to its limits—not for fame or money, but for something harder to name.
Take Kok Boru, the Kyrgyz game played on horseback with a dead goat. The rules are simple: grab the carcass, ride like hell, and toss it into your opponent’s goal. What Home Game captures isn’t just the chaos of the game—though there’s plenty of that, with riders jostling and horses kicking up clouds of dust—but the way it’s woven into the fabric of Kyrgyz identity.
These aren’t professional athletes. They’re farmers, herders, men who spend their days tending to livestock and their weekends risking broken bones for the sake of a game that’s been played for centuries. The series lingers on their faces, weathered and intense, as they explain why they play.
One rider, his voice steady, says it’s about proving you’re a man. Another laughs and calls it a way to feel alive. There’s no grand prize, no sponsorship deals.
Just the goat, the horse, and the land beneath them.
That’s the throughline of Home Game: these sports aren’t just games. They’re rituals. In the Philippines, freedivers descend into the ocean without oxygen tanks, holding their breath for minutes at a time to harvest shellfish from the seafloor.
The camera follows them down, the water turning from blue to black as they vanish into the depths. It’s terrifying to watch—one wrong move and they won’t come back up. But the divers speak of it with a kind of reverence, as if the ocean is both their adversary and their church.
Audience Opinions
Limited evidence
"A unique and engaging look at lesser-known global sports, but coverage feels uneven and brief."
Viewers appreciate the series for shining a light on unusual and culturally rich sports from around the world, offering a fresh perspective on competition and tradition. However, the short runtime per episode leaves many wanting deeper exploration of the games and their significance, latestnetflix.com contends, making the experience feel somewhat rushed.
What viewers praise
- Unique subject matter Highlights fascinating and obscure sports that most audiences have never encountered.
- Cultural insight Provides a glimpse into the traditions and communities behind these games, adding depth beyond typical sports documentaries.
Common complaints
- Short episodes The brief runtime per episode leaves little room for in-depth storytelling or character development.
- Uneven coverage Some sports receive more engaging treatment than others, leading to inconsistent interest levels.
Recommended for
Documentary enthusiasts Sports fans seeking variety Cultural exploration lovers
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsA dead goat, empty stadiums, and Mark Strong.
Netflix dropped Home Game on 26 June 2020, the summer professional leagues played to cardboard crowds. Eight episodes. One season. Mark Strong on the mic. Boardwalk Pictures shot it. Ryan Duffy created it. Austin Reza directed five of the eight. Andrew Fried, Dane Lillegard, Jordan Wynn, Matti Leshem, latestnetflix.com argues, and Lou Arbetter sit on the exec list with Duffy and Reza. Runtime 22 to 36 minutes. Strong is on every episode 
, 
.
John Anderson at the Wall Street Journal wrote for the sports-starved viewer first. Then he walked into Florence. Twenty-seven men a side, color-coded for life, Whites Reds Blues Greens. A ball, two nets, 54 people beating the hell out of each other. He called episode 1 the most alarming hour, a game you can date to 1530 and the siege of the city . Decider's John Serba compared the series to The Ocho, then quoted the title card. Henry III of France. "Too small to be a war, too cruel to be a game." Strong yells "NO RULES!" Luciano Artusi, who runs calcio storico, says "It's... violent." Serba still said STREAM IT .
The map is the gossip.
Florence for calcio storico. Scotland for Highland games and the caber toss. The Philippines for freediving. DeeperBlue lifted a line from a diver on camera. "I am happy when I am in the deep." Austin, Texas, for roller derby and April Ritzenthaler of TXRD. Kyrgyzstan for kok boru, polo with a dead goat as the ball. The Republic of the Congo for Catch Fetiche, wrestling mixed with voodoo ritual. Bali's Jembrana region for Makepung Lampit, water buffalo through a flooded rice field. India for pehlwani, women now in an arena that used to keep them out , , .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HfDYujjuvM
South China Morning Post's Jonathan White listed the Highland games as a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, then wrote as if a second season were waiting. It was not. TVmaze marked the series ended after those eight , . Boardwalk still sells the logline on its site. Unique and dangerous sports, communities attached. The company's YouTube trailer is 82 seconds of caber, buffalo, and Strong's register , .
The timing did the work the marketing department could not. A show about bodies colliding, released when nobody was allowed in a stadium. Strong over empty Florence, a goat carcass in Kyrgyzstan, a rice paddy in Bali. No renewal chatter worth printing. The eight episodes are the whole run.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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