The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football

Contents:

  • Bin Laden's favourite team and other curiosities
  • A Global History of Soccer
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  • The Ball is Round

    • Jan 02, Pages. The definitive book about soccer, from the author of The Games: A Global History of the Olympics.

    Bin Laden's favourite team and other curiosities

    There may be no cultural practice more global than soccer. Rites of birth and marriage are infinitely diverse, but the rules of soccer are universal. No world religion can match its geographical scope. The single greatest simultaneous human collective experience is the World Cup final.

    From the Trade Paperback edition. David Goldblatt has been a professional photographer since Anyone with a brain and an interest in football will enjoy this book: This book is a mindboggling achievement. Also by David Goldblatt.

    The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer and millions of other books are available for . What stories do football fans tell about their sport and their stars?. The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football. by David Goldblatt. pp, Viking , £ It is half-time in the new film Zidane: A 21st Century.

    One of these shows the aftermath of a car bomb in Iraq. The scene is a familiar one: One of the bystanders is sporting a football shirt from Real Madrid and has Zidane's name on the back.

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    • The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer by David Goldblatt!
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    • The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer?
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    Since it became a worldwide phenomenon, nobody has attempted to write an overall history of the game. Now David Goldblatt's stunning book will be the measure against which all other such volumes are judged.

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    Weighing in at more than pages, this might seem a mighty read. But Goldblatt has packed the book with detail, stories, match reports and rumination. It can be read cover-to-cover or dipped into.

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    • The English Language: A Guided Tour of the Language!

    It is both a magnificent work of synthesis of other people's research and a voyage into entirely new territory. I found myself zipping around the globe, and across time, from Saudia Arabia to Ireland, from Bolton to Calcutta.

    A Global History of Soccer

    The book moves from comments on types of studs to descriptions of matches. Part of the joy of The Ball Is Round is its eclecticism. Goldblatt is convinced - rightly - that football cannot be isolated from history and sociology and economics , and that these forces cannot be understood without reference to the most global and wealthy of all sports: While not making mechanical links between economic change and footballing development, the author always positions the sport within its changing global context.

    Given the difficulty of such an undertaking, Goldblatt has pulled the whole thing off with panache.

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    Sometimes he overreaches himself, but these moments are fairly rare. Above all, this book poses so many questions that it should provide a stimulus for enthusiasts and students to look into different areas of the game, especially in terms of comparing national sporting traditions. It is at its best when Goldblatt visits Latin America.

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    David Goldblatt has been a professional photographer since See all books by David Goldblatt. Goldblatt's book provides all the background one needs to understand the circumstances under which FIFA has corrupted the beautiful game, as well as its role in helping it spread into a truly worldwide phenomenon. And this is where the book shines. No world religion can match its geographical scope. This is the bible of global soccer history as it relates to politics, economics, and society. This isn't really a problem, but it's important to note what this book is an what it isn't.

    There are a series of superb chapters on Argentine and Brazilian football which perfectly weave together politics, dictatorship, tactics and wing-play. Some of the most interesting sections deal with the urban teams of Buenos Aires, with its heady mix of immigrants and indigenous cultures.

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    Other areas take in the links to Peron and the political implications of football's rise and fall in the various countries on the continent. The Ball Is Round also wears its heart on its sleeve: But we also learn about masculinity, about the "anti-football" of the s and 70s which developed in Argentina and was surely copied by Leeds United , and of course about the great players and very different footballing cultures which these nations produced over time.

    Short match reports are interspersed throughout the text, taking in key matches or moments in footballing history.

    The Ball is Round

    This device breaks up the narrative to good effect as well as allowing us to "take the field" among the players, almost as if we were actually attending games, or reading contemporary accounts. This is important, because Goldblatt never loses sight of the fact that the game itself also matters. Not everything can be explained or understood through world economic trends, regime change or immigration shifts. Football's essential qualities remain the same, whether you are playing on a dusty field in India or in a huge stadium in Germany.