Football Against The Enemy

by SimonKuper (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1994

  $12.85

  Published to coincide with the 1994 World Cup, this book is the record of a journey through Europe, Africa and the Americas looking at the often surprising relations between politics, culture and football. The author describes his meetings with a remarkable variety of football fans, from the East German dissident whose crime was to support a West German team, to an Argentinean general with his own highly personal views of tactics - and throws new light on the political, religious and cultural forces at work in the game, from the bitter sectarian hatred of an old firm game to the emergence of racially integrated football in South Africa, from the mafia-controlled corruption of Dynamo Kiev to the Hollywood-style preparations for the USA World Cup.

• Used

  Paperback
  1996

  $3.16

• New

  paperback
  

  $11.21

  The classic winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. Throughout the world, football is a potent force in the lives of billions of people. Focusing national, political and cultural identities, football is the medium through which the world's hopes and fears, passions and hatreds are expressed. Simon Kuper travelled to 22 countries from South Africa to Italy, from Russia to the USA, to examine the way football has shaped them. At the same time he tried to find out what lies behind each nation's distinctive style of play, from the carefree self-expression of the Brazilians to the anxious calculation of the Italians. During his journeys he met an extraordinary range of players, politicians and - of course - the fans themselves, all of whom revealed in their different ways the unique place football has in the life of the planet.