Next December 29 at 10:05 p.m., Barça TV and TV3 will premiere ‘100×100 Tito’, a documentary produced by Barça Studios which recalls the figure of Tito Vilanova at Barça and the complicated 2012/13 season in which the team had to face the fight against their coach’s cancer. These were very hard moments for the squad, an unprecedented moral blow from elite sport, which gave rise to a communion and a spirit of improvement within the dressing room that are difficult to match.
The documentary was created with the aim of pay tribute to Vilanova and count on the participation of his family who, for the first time after his death, opens up to speak to remember him. The story reviews Vilanova’s sporting career at Barça, his appointment as first coach and the courage shown by players and staff during that season in which, despite the coach having to leave his job mid-season, the first team of the FC Barcelona won the League scoring a historical record. It was the League of 100 points.
Wide player participation
The 70-minute long documentary has a vast list of testimonies that make the story a faithful and tender story. There is a good representation of the players of that season: Messi, Piqué, Busquets, Xavi, Jordi Alba, Puyol, Iniesta, Pedro, Abidal and Cesc Fàbregas. Members of the technical staff and of the Club’s executive structure at that time like Andoni Zubizarreta and also Jordi Roura and Aureli Altimira, the anonymous heroes of history, in charge of pulling the ship forward while their captain and friend fought for their lives. Institutional representatives such as Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell also appear. As well as his widow, Montse; his children, Adrià and Carlota, and his father, Quimet.
The piece is full of exciting and unforgettable moments and also leaves a good number of sentences to remember. “All the values that Barça transmits, Tito reflected in everything he did,” says Messi, who describes his last conversation with the coach who had already guided his steps in the Club’s cadet team, along with Cesc and Piqué. The Argentine Crack explains how Vilanova convinced him to stay at Barça.
Jordi Roura, a close friend of Tito since they met at La Masía together with Altimira, Guardiola, Amor and other illustrious names, comments that Vilanova “made it possible for him to be the coach of Barça as a person who behaved in an absolutely normal way; and this, which seems like an obvious thing, is neither so obvious, nor so common ”.
Award-winning work with unpublished material
The cameras of the documentary travel to L’Escala and Bellcaire d’Empordà (Girona), where Vilanova’s parents currently live; to New York, where he underwent surgery and treatment; to Andorra, where his son Adrià currently plays; to Qatar to interview Xavi Hernández; and even to the room of the Quirón Hospital in Barcelona where Tito spent his last days accompanied by his closest circle.
The documentary also features unpublished audiovisual material, never seen before, belonging to the family’s personal archive. During the footage you can see, for example, one of the last motivational talks that Vilanova recorded to the first team from his apartment in New York while undergoing medical treatment. Sitting on a sofa, Vilanova addresses the staff through his mobile. Intimate moments that now see the light and that show a brave and fighting Tito, always committed to his vocation for football and with great esteem for his teammates and for Barça.
‘100×100 Tito’ is directed by Cristina Collado and Marta Busquets, with executive production by Paco Latorre and Helena Vila, and was recently awarded the first prize in the Sports category of the Zoom Festival of Igualada, one of the most prestigious audiovisual competitions Of the territory.
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