Abstract:
Campeones tells the story of the professional basketball coach Marco Montes and his team "Los Amigos" becoming vice-champions of the Spanish Paralympic National Cup. First reluctant to train the Amigos, Marco gets more and more attached to them and manages to transform the untrained and mismatched "bunch" into a successful team. In return, through his work with the Amigos, Marco can overcome his marital problems and his fear of starting a family with his wife, Sonia.
Details:
The movie starts with a basketball game between the Movistar Estudiantes and the Tenerife Iberostar. Marco, the co-trainer of the Movistar Estudiantes, breaks off a fight with the main trainer, Francisco Carrascosa, over the team's strategy and aggressively pushes him, which leads to a public scandal and him being fired. Frustrated, Marco gets drunk in a bar and drives home in his car. Being under the influence, he crashes into a police car and gets arrested. At the end of his trial, the judge sentences him to 18 months in jail or 3 months of community service at the "Los Amigos Association", a sports club for people with mental disabilities. Since he does not want to go to prison, he reluctantly chooses community service.
On his first day, he meets with the manager of the Association, Julio, and the members of the basketball team: Fabián, Sergio, Jesus, Juanma, Paquito, Benito, Román, Manuel and Marín. After the first training session, Marco complains to Julio that the Amigos cannot even pass the ball to each other and that the whole project is just impossible. He states that his job is to "train normal players" and that the Amigos are "neither players nor normal". After some weeks of training, Julio calls Marco excitedly and tells him that the Amigos qualified for the national cup. In one of the training sessions, Marco notices Román training individually and throwing balls at the basket. Marco tells him that he seems to be "the only one who can play" and that he wants him to play in the national cup since he "doesn't want to embarrass himself". Soon after this conversation, Román leaves the team.
When Marco sees Benito leave with a scooter, he calls out in disbelief. In his opinion, Benito should not drive because he could kill himself or someone else. When he starts belittling Benito's mental capacities, Julio steps up and states that, in contrast to Marco, Benito has never had an accident in his life. He explains to Marco how the members of the Amigos make their living and pass their days. He mentions the challenges they have to overcome on a daily basis and the areas where they thrive.
At their first game, Benito is missing. The others tell Marco that Benito's boss is making fun of him at work and does not let him go to the game.
Before the second game, Julio calls Marco and tells him that he has found a transfer who could replace Román. The player's name is "Collantes". Marco soon realizes that Collantes is actually a rather tiny woman "with a big mouth". After having won the game, the Amigos take the bus to go home. They are very excited because of their victory, which unnerves the other passengers and leads to them getting kicked off the bus.
After the bus incident, Marco, who currently stays at his mother's house due to marital issues, heads to see his wife, Sonia. He tells her that he wants to quit training the Amigos because he "can't take care of 30-year-olds who behave like 6-year-olds". Sonia angrily replies that he is just getting cold feet and that, being their coach, he has to protect them. After the fight, Sonia borrows her colleague's caravan and becomes the Amigos' driver and co-trainer. With Sonia on board, the Amigos start to have a winning streak. Román and Carrascosa secretly watch one of the Amigo's games and seem to be impressed by the success of the team and Marco's coaching skills. When Marco notices Román in the audience, he apologizes to him about what he had told him in their last conversation and invites him to come back to the game. Román accepts this invitation.
Soon after the conversation with Román, Marco asks Sonia to get back together with him. She tells him that she would love to but that she wants to start a family. Marco responds hesitantly and answers that this "is a really tough decision". Also, he doesn't want to have a disabled child. Sonia storms off in frustration. Marín, who overheard their conversation, tells Marco that he also does not want to have a child-like "them". If he could choose, he would also prefer a healthy child. What he would like, however, would be a father like Marco. He thanks Marco for everything he has done for the Amigos and leaves. Shortly after the successful game, Julio tells Marco that the Amigos cannot participate in the final game on the Canary Islands because the club cannot afford the flight.
However, Marco has a plan. He and Sonia dress up as police officers and pay Benito's boss a visit. They pretend to have evidence against him, which proves that he is bullying and mistreating Benito. When the boss proposes a deal, they negotiate that he has to become the new sponsor of the Amigos.
On the way to their final game, Julio tells Marco that Román used to be a Paralympic champion. However, he had to give back his gold medal because his coach had put up a team composed of almost only people without disabilities. Ever since this fraud, Román had never trusted a coach again.
After a very narrow defeat in the final game, Marco seems to be disappointed. The team members, on the other hand, celebrate being the vice-champion. When Marco realizes this, he changes his attitude and starts celebrating with them. They say that it is even better to be the vice champions because they still have a goal that they can work on. Happily, Marco tells Sonia that he finally feels ready to have children. Soon after the game, Marco gets called by Carrascosa, who asks him to become his co-trainer of the Spanish national baseball team.
When Marco tells Julio that he wants to take the job and will stop training the Amigos, he doesn't have the heart to say goodbye to his team. He mumbles an excuse and quickly walks off onto the street. When he turns around with tears in his eyes, he realizes that the Amigos have followed him. They say goodbye emotionally and tell each other what they have learned from the time they spent together. The movie ends with them joyfully doing their battle cry one last time.
