Necaxa Episodes 1-2 Recap: How Does Eva Longoria Come In?

I’m going to say this right off the bat—Necaxa, FXX’s latest football docuseries, is nowhere near the already iconic Welcome to Wrexham. The reason I’m bringing up Wrexham here is because the show, and its executive producer and star, Eva Longoria, try their best to piggyback on the success of Wrexham. Longoria even brings Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, chairmen of Wrexham, into the fold, as they happily invest in Necaxa. And the Wrexham men try their best—they even come up with a skit where Rob Mac is learning the Spanish language and pretty much nailing it, while Reynolds is unable to catch up with his buddy. Sadly, none of it actually works here. This is still Longoria’s show; she is the star of it and also ‘the boss’ of Necaxa—that’s what the players and staff call her, affectionately. But the problem lies in that Necaxa is way more about Longoria than the football club, unlike the much superior Wrexham. Let’s take a look at what we see in the opening two episodes. 

Finding a new home

Despite being founded as much as one hundred and two years ago, back in 1923, Necaxa had to wait eighty years to finally find a proper home ground. Before moving to Aguascalientes, which is approximately 500 km away from Mexico City, where the club was originally founded, Necaxa used to play their home games at the Estadio Azteca, which they had to share with two other popular Mexican football teams and their big rivals—Club America and Cruz Azul. Necaxa might have a glorious history, but so do these two, and in the recent past, they’ve been more successful. Necaxa might have three stars on their crest—flaunting their three championship wins—but all those actually came long ago. With a new city as their base and a new home ground, Estadio Victoria, Necaxa dreamt of making it big, but that didn’t quite happen. Another big issue they faced was, despite being a football club more than three quarters of a century old at the time, they were new in the city of Aguascalientes, and the people didn’t quite warm up to them. 

How does Eva Longoria come in?

Even though Longoria has almost zero knowledge about the game of football, by her own admission, her passion and love for this team is unquestionable. The Desperate Housewives star has quite the history—even though she’s Mexican by descent, her upbringing is completely American. She hails from Texas, and her father is a huge fan of the American football team, the Dallas Cowboys. He’s also the reason and inspiration behind Longoria investing in Necaxa. The other reason is that Longoria is now married to a Mexican businessman, and her nine-year-old son speaks fluent Spanish. With Necaxa, she wants to come closer to her roots, which is a genuinely wholesome thing, I would say. If you think about it, if this show becomes successful, it could change the fortunes of the club by bringing in a lot of money. Only time will tell.

How does Necaxa perform on the football field?

Touching history, the presence of Eva Longoria, a new home for two decades now; but in the end, all that matters is how you’re performing on the field, right? For a team like Necaxa, the performance on the field is actually very important, because that’s how you get the fans. People need to see you winning some games to cheer for you. The locals of Aguascalientes are already divided between Club America and CD Guadalajara. A lot of them are not quite willing to invest their emotion in Necaxa, despite the club having history. One very important thing Rob Mac points out, which is the main difference between Wrexham and Necaxa, is the town and the football club are quite intertwined there. Win or lose, Wrexham Football Club represents the town and is accepted by all. What Rob Mac doesn’t say is this is also the very reason that the show feels sharp and intense, and this one feels quite drab in comparison. We don’t really care much about the Necaxa football club, much like the people of the city they’re based in.

And the football that we see, at least in the first two episodes of the show, is not all that promising. Sure, there’s no shortage of great characters and their individual, inspirational stories. Instead of focusing on every single player, the series puts the spotlight on a select few. Captain Alexis Pena gets most of the spotlight, for all the right reasons. The guy is a true leader and loved by all. He moved away from Necaxa back in 2020 and won accolades at both Guadalajara and Cruz Azul but has since come back because he didn’t get much playtime in those clubs. Pena really considers Necaxa his home now, and would do anything to make the club worthy. Unfortunately, he gets injured at the end of the 2023-2024 season and has to deal with a major surgery, which keeps him off the field for two months. That puts Fernando Arce in charge of the troop. Arce is the son of former Mexican national team footballer Fernando Arce Sr., and he’s under the burden of his father’s legacy. Sadly for him, he crumbles under pressure, and we see Necaxa bow out of the league cup—where both teams from the USA and Mexico participate—after suffering a heavy defeat of 5-0 against San Jose. They do beat Seattle in the same tournament though, giving Longoria some happiness. The second episode concludes with Necaxa’s league game against Pumas, where they win 2-0, and most importantly, Arce ends up scoring a great header. I believe we’re going to follow the rest of the 2024-2025 season in the upcoming episodes. 

An Observation

This might be helpful for you if you’re watching this as a non-football fan. In Mexican football, there’s no concept of relegation currently. This means Necaxa is always going to stay in the league. To explain this further, in other countries like England, you play in the top-tier football league, i.e., the English Premier League, but if you end up in the bottom three, then you get relegated to the second tier, i.e., the Championship. The top three teams from that second tier also get promotion to the EPL. Quite naturally, the stakes are higher there, unlike the case for Necaxa. This is another big reason for this show not really working as of now. Things can always get better, though; as a football fan, I would like to see that.

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