For billions of fans around the world, soccer is the king or queen of all sports. A 90-minute game can stir up authentic emotions of joy, heartbreak, fear and pain as they witness their teams win or lose a championship.
And Eva Longoria, who stars in the new FX documentary series “Necaxa”— named after one of Mexico’s historic and storied soccer teams — says those intense loyalties and feelings can make sports stories compelling.
“That drama and emotion really is something you can’t script,” she said in a video interview. “It’s what makes you keep coming back for more.”
Longoria is also an executive producer of the new documentary series featuring the now-underdog Club Necaxa as it competes in the country’s Liga MX.
"Necaxa," produced by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, is in some ways like a spinoff of the two men's hugely successful “Welcome to Wrexham” series focused on an underdog Welsh soccer team — and its recent, remarkable rise.
Like its predecessor, "Necaxa" gives viewers an inside scoop into the lives of players and fans who are holding on to the dream of becoming champions.
"The team is so much more than about winning and losing," Longoria said. “There’s so much that goes on behind the scenes with the trainers, with the coaches, with the staff, with the town, with the fans — the players at home, their wives. They're having family issues, they're having injuries — there’s so much that goes into winning championships."
Diego González, a former player and the current press officer for the club, said, “Necaxa, for me, is truly a family.”
“In the end, we spend much more time at the club or with the team than even in our own homes, so it ends up being a family for us,” he said in a video interview. “That’s what motivates me to be part of the team.”
And for Longoria, family is also a big part of sports.
Soccer is known as football or fútbol in most countries outside the United States. But as she was growing up in Texas, Longoria said, football meant one thing to her as a sports fan: her father’s favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys.
“My dad was a big Dallas Cowboys fan, which means we were big Dallas Cowboys fans,” she said. “My favorite childhood memories are going to a Cowboys game or watching the Cowboys games. And I grew up in the ’90s, which was when we won, you know, three championships.”
During that decade, Necaxa also had a silver age, winning three Mexican league titles.
Now, more than a quarter-century has passed since that last championship in 1998. And clouded by inconsistent performances, Necaxa faces a difficult path as an underdog, with the club trying to reclaim its former powerhouse legacy.
Longoria is also a minority investor in the club. This isn’t the first time she has backed an underdog; she's credited with stepping up to save the first movie of the popular neo-noir revenge franchise “John Wick” with a last-minute investment of $6 million just over a decade ago.
A Mexican team — but also with Celtic roots
Necaxa was established in 1923, roughly a decade after U.S. Soccer. And like Wrexham, which is in Wales, the Mexican soccer club has Celtic roots — Scottish engineer William H. Frasser founded the club.
Frasser owned the Light and Power Company in Mexico and named the team after the Necaxa dam in the state of Puebla, which was one of the most powerful hydroelectric plants at the beginning of the 20th century.
Nicknamed “The Electricians,” Necaxa won its first league title in 1932-33. That era is considered the club’s golden age, when it claimed four league championships. But those early titles happened before Mexico established a premier soccer division in 1943.
Necaxa players —and fans — still look back at the club’s history with a sense of pride.
“I think there have been many, many more players who have come from Necaxa than any other [Mexican] team,” defender Emilio Lara, who is featured in the series, told NBC News. “So the team is like a steppingstone, a leap forward for footballers.”
Legendary Mexican players like Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Alberto García Aspe and Luis Hernández put on the Necaxa jersey in the 1990s.
And viewers will see how players today are inspired by that legacy to carry the team forward.
“I’m a very passionate person, and since I’ve been here, I think it shows in my attitude, in my style, in the way I play, the way I defend the shirt,” team captain Alexis Peña said in a joint video interview with other players. “I would give my life for this club.”
Necaxa players say they have an unbreakable fighting spirit, even when they aren’t seen as league favorites.
And that passion, Longoria points out, is what transforms sports into dramatic plays.
"There's a saying in Spanish, you're not a Necaxa fan if you don't suffer," Longoria said, adding they feel they have to suffer to win.
"So they're okay with the suffering," she said with a laugh.
She hopes Necaxa’s story as an underdog will resonate with Americans, stirring empathy and hope. And those strong feelings, Longoria says, make for “good TV.”
