Tony “Matador” Bravo works undercover in a very conspicuous place: a professional soccer field.
El Rey’s new 13-episode drama, “Matador” (Tuesdays, 9 p.m) mixes the dark arts of spying with the bright lights of big-time sports, as Tony (Gabriel Luna), a DEA-agent-turned-CIA-operative, infiltrates a professional soccer team, the L.A. Riot.
Tony “is a skilled DEA agent, but now he goes into a very unfamiliar world. He comes from meager beginnings — East L.A., Boyle Heights, working-class family — and he has to enter into the world of Andrés Galan (Alfred Molina), the multibillionaire, telecommunications (mogul) and soccer team owner,” who has plans that could threaten the United States, Luna says.
As a soccer player, Tony can get closer to Galan, but he also must deal with living out a childhood dream and facing the temptations of a glamorous lifestyle.
“It certainly can be a distraction, considering it’s something Tony really wants for himself,” Luna says. There is a conflict there.”
The cable network’s founder, Robert Rodriguez (From Dusk Till Dawn, Spy Kids), who directed the first episode and is an executive producer, says “Matador” will appeal to Latinos , a network target, but a broader audience will be interested.
“We really wanted to create something new and exciting … that, at the end of the day, anybody could watch and go, ‘Oh, yeah, I like soccer. I like spies. I can watch this show,’ and they’ll get something from it, and it’s entertaining,” he says.
Luna sees Rodriguez’s sensibility in El Rey and “Matador”, which already has been picked up for a second season. “It’s such a visual network. I go to bars, and they have El Rey on, just because it’s cool. There’s a crazy car chase, an explosion here, beautiful girls, a kung-fu movie. It’s good stuff, and I believe our show fits right in.”
