Real Madrid - Behind the Scenes

Or alternate subtitle - Prepare yourself for all the feels/tingles/chills.

I've been thinking for months about writing a behind-the-scenes series. Goodness knows you get almost total player coverage on this blog. And we certainly have matches covered from just about all angles. But aside from the occasional peripherally- focused think-piece or satirical rambling, usually from me :-), we don't spend much time looking at the rest that makes up the club that is Real Madrid.

So I started to put together little snapshots here and there a few months ago. Stories, video clips, etc. Anecdotes and little subtleties around the trainers, assistants, history, board - you name it. I thought it would be a nice departure for me to actually, you know, put some real journalistic effort and investigation behind a feature.

But then, with about 1/2 of my content collected, the Real Madrid F.C. marketing team decided to do my job for me - and naturally, incomparably better than I ever could. They did so with an amazing new original series that just started on their new Facebook account - Hala Madrid

Real Madrid teamed up with GoPro to make use of Facebook's new "Watch" platform to shoot a a gorgeous high-definition, eight episode series. Shot over the course of last season, we unfortunately don't get to see the new crop of youngsters, but it's still an incredible production a mere few months later, complete with some glorious cinematography.

This series narrated by Orlando Bloom has already launched the trailer and first two episodes, with the remaining scheduled to be released the next six Saturdays.

Episode 1 - Training day -

A first look at the players and Cuidad Real Madrid. Some awesome training close looks. And at approximately the 7:30 mark, you get to hear and see Zizou talk about why he loves what he does, the smile on his face is enough to make the staunchest stoic melt.

Episode 2 - A City and its Soul -

This episode dives into the history of the club, it's legendary status, and more Zidane talking about how even after 16 years he feels so happy and motivated to be a part of this club.

Keep an eye out for the remaining 6 episodes in this beautiful series. And make sure you maximize the screen and change the settings to 1080p and crank the volume for the full experience (for some reason it has a tendency to default to 270)

The first two videos have well over 1 million views in the first week, so this series should get quite a bit of awesome press - and hopefully bring some more folks over to the White Side.