“The Champion” is a formulaic Spanish sports melodrama about an athlete with “issues” finding his way back to public favor and his place within “the beautiful game.”

It’s not subtle, featuring a rageaholic soccer star whose tantrums are over the top and can be triggered by just about anything. It’s clumsy, suggesting an introverted academic expert on “genius” and not a therapist is the best person to “help” Atletico Madrid superstar Diego grow up.

But it has a moment, here and there. There’s an insight or two that slips in around the edges. And the Big Game finale even manages a surprise that summons a tiny lump in the throat.

Screen newcomer Marcel Serrano is Diego, the small-town boy whose drive — and pushy father (Pablo Chiapella) have taken him to soccer stardom in his teens. Now pushing 20, he’s rich, with 20 people on the payroll, a mansion filled with hangers-on, and his beautiful childhood sweetheart (Cintia García) on his arm.

But we meet Diego in crisis. Losing a match sets off a tantrum that ends with him cursing one and all and head-butting the team captain, all captured on TV.

A lot of threats about how he should “represent the club’s values” and “There’s no room on the team for a hooligan (in Spanish, or dubbed into English) lead to a press conference and a stumbling attempt at reading an apology.

Diego doesn’t realize it, but his agent Juanma (Luis Fernández) has bribed his on-the-spectrum academic brother (Dani Rovira) to come, observe, coach and “help” the star improve his behavior during a multi-game suspension leading up to the season-ending match for the league title.

Academic Alex is a loner, about to lose the house he inherited, a guy with issues traceable back to his and Juanma’s emotionally unavailable, soccer-obsessed father. He’s not a therapist, licensed or otherwise. But he can be bought and perhaps manipulated. And as an observer, he picks up on Diego’s first big problem at that press conference.

“I’m not an idiot, you know,” the kid hisses.

“You have dyslexia.”

With Diego impulsive, mercurial and prone to “do whatever I want,” and with social media and mass media publicity to do about this “intensive education” session to help Diego “tackle” his problems, Alex is instantly in over his head and neither man seems all that keen to get on with much of anything, much less grappling with the issues at hand.

A simple “add words to your vocabulary” regimen, praising Diego’s native “genius” at recognizing patterns in space — on the soccer pitch or on a Rubik’s Cube — and getting away from the paparazzi in Alex’s hometown, and Diego’s own, should be enough to “fix” him. Right?

The film’s simplistic cause and effect won’t be to many tastes, nor will its tried-and-trite march-to-the-big-game/remember-why-you-love-it plot.

But it a few moments. Serrano blows up with conviction, and Rovira’s not bad at a sort of “Monk” soccer whisperer. Chiapella is very convincing as the bullying, success-at-all-costs control freak father, and García makes the most of a tiny supporting role which, considering her character’s love and concern for Diego, should have been larger and more integral to the story.

“The Champion” isn’t a winner, but formulaic or not, it’s never quite a total write-off either.

Rating: TV-MA, some violence, profanity

Cast: Marcel Serrano, Dani Rovira, Pablo Chiapella, Cintia García and Luis Fernández

Credits: Directed by Carlos Therón, scripted by Joan Gual and Joaquín Oristrell. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:46