EN SILENCIO. La resiliencia de Isco Alarcón.

Football’s calendar keeps moving even when a player has to stop. In SILENT STRUGGLE, Isco Alarcón’s time is measured instead through exercises, appointments and waiting. Sara Sálamo follows the Betis midfielder as he recovers from a fibula injury and a second operation, entering the places where a return to the pitch is prepared long before it becomes a public image.

The Spanish documentary, originally titled En silencio. La resiliencia de Isco Alarcón, begins with an interrupted career and a missed European Championship. Football remains present even in absence: the team’s matches mark the passing days while the protagonist watches, waits and works towards being physically available again. Belonging to a group while being unable to play becomes an everyday condition.

Rehabilitation takes place in concrete spaces. There are X-rays, discussions with medical staff, the pool and the gym; then balance exercises, running and the ball. A brace, a wound and training equipment bring the story back to the body. Decisions about workload and playing minutes must be made gradually, as the athlete’s desire encounters the time needed for recovery.

Alongside these images are those of home and the children. The journey passes through family conversations, travel and video calls: being away from competition also affects the people with whom Isco shares his life. The director is also his partner, and that closeness enters the film through a discussion about when it is appropriate to record vulnerable moments. The camera’s presence becomes part of the relationship being portrayed.

Empty stands, corridors, thresholds and benches recur throughout the documentary. These are football spaces inhabited while waiting, places where the player is close to the pitch without yet being able to take part. Details of his operated leg and exercises alternate with wider views of the stadium, bringing the individual scale of recovery and the public dimension of his profession into the same story.

Returning to play brings further checks: new discomfort, medical caution and sporting expectations continue to coexist. Reports, interviews and news circulate around the protagonist while everyday preparation goes on. The film follows the distance between what an audience can see of a footballer and what it takes to be ready to play again.

Written and directed by Sara Sálamo and produced by Montauk Cinema with Montauk Canarias, SILENT STRUGGLE invites audiences into the less visible time of professional sport. At its centre are rehabilitation, relationships and a question accompanying each step towards the pitch: how to rebuild trust in a body that is being asked to compete again.