La academia (translation: "The academy") is a Spanish Teen Drama television series created by Sony Pictures Television and Brutal Media for Catalonian channel 3cat and Prime Video.
Apolo FC is one of the best football clubs worldwide, where boys and girls fight for a shared dream: be successful on the first team.
In this training centre, rivalry is everywhere, both in and out of the football field, while each member deals with their own dreams and fears, desire and repression, camadery and jealousy. Everyone will bring the best and the worst of themselves while they fight for success and finding their own identity in the middle of the competition.
It aired on 1st April 2024.
La academia contains examples of:
- Always Someone Better: Adrián feels threatened by Jairo's arrival to the football team, getting really insecure about his own ability, especially when his own father and coach Bellido pay more attention to him. Adrián and Jairo become a Teeth-Clenched Teamwork.
- A Minor Kidroduction: Episodes 2-6 and 8 of season 1 start with a flashback with one of the characters when they were kids.
- Bilingual Dialogue: All Catalonian characters speak both Spanish and Catalonian, just as it happens in real life.
- Celebrity Cameo: Real life professional football player Mapi León makes a cameo As Herself.
- Conflicting Loyalty: Lara feels torn between defending her leadership at the football club or her teammates. She finally chooses to defend her teammates about her coach's mistreatment.
- Creepy Gym Coach: Patterson, the coach of the female football club, mistreats them.
- The Gift: Jairo has never gotten formal training before (coach Bellido discovered his talent by seeing him on the streets), and still he gets into the football team and is better than the other members, whom have been training for years.
- Incompatible Orientation: Female player Lara has a crush on male player Adrián, but he's gay.
- Infodump: The coach's speech in the first episode is used to show the situation of the football club.
- The Leader: Adrián is the one of the male football team and Lara is the one of the female football team.
- Passionate Sports Girl: All players of the female football club are this.
- The Perfectionist: Lara is afraid to stand up to coach Patterson, and wants everything to go without a hitch. She struggles with this, both with herself and while disciplining her team, so she feels overwhelmed.
- Sports Dad: Tomás is very enthusiastic about his son Adrián playing football… until Jairo arrives.
- Technician Versus Performer: Adrián (technician) vs Jairo (performer). Adrián has trained hard his whole life, so he struggles to see Jairo's natural talent. Jairo is a natural without formal training, so he struggles to follow the academy's rules.
- Training Montage: The players get several when training for the matches.