Football is much more than a sport, it is a cultural phenomenon that has inspired numerous writers over the years and a huge business at all levels: television, signings and bookmakers.
Football literature has evolved and developed in such a way that today there are football books of all kinds, from novels and biographies to essays and sports chronicles.
In recent years, this genre has experienced a boom in popularity and has proven to be an effective way to explore and understand soccer and its meaning in popular culture.
In this article, we’ll explore the rich tradition of football literature and how it has evolved into a genre with a wide variety of titles to suit all tastes.
Soccer and Drama by Sergio Vargas
This book by Sergio Vargas focuses on the social, sports and political chronicle of soccer. Through five stories in different countries -Argentina, England, Germany, Chile and Italy- different negative aspects of the game are presented.
From the relegation of Manchester United to the violence in a Copa Libertadores superclassic, through the corruption in the Italian calcio and the Coup d’état in Chile, all the stories have an unfortunate ending.
The author explores the events that have shaped the football culture of each country, from the influence of the barras bravas to post-war Manchester. At the same time, the journalist does not ignore the romanticism that football awakens in all of us. In short, this book offers a deep and complex vision of football and its multiple implications in society and politics.
The Damned United by David Peace
In 1974, the controversial Brian Clough was appointed manager of Leeds United, a team that won the Premier League in 1973 under Don Revie, Clough’s nemesis. Mr. Clough’s tour of Leeds lasted a month and a half.
The book mixes Clough’s brief journey in charge of Leeds with his career up to that point. The former player, who had to retire early due to a complicated injury, managed to become second division champion at the helm of Derby County, with whom he won the Premier 3 years later in 1972. That elevated them to the category of myths.
David Peace portrays Clough as a man of great ambition, authoritarian and spiteful, who did not leave anyone indifferent wherever he went. It is an excellent work of fiction that is considered one of the best soccer novels ever written.
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
This book is an autobiography in which the author recounts his experience as an Arsenal fan. It is a funny and nostalgic story about how soccer can be an important part of a person’s life.
Fever Pitch has garnered enormous critical and commercial success since its first publication in 1992. It has helped create a new breed of sports writing and established Hornby as one of the greatest writers of his generation.
Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson
This book is a comprehensive history of soccer and how it has developed over time. From primitive forms of play to modern styles, Wilson explores the evolution of soccer strategy, breaking down the finer details of the game and tracing the history of tactics, from modern pioneers to the beginnings of chaos.
This 10th anniversary edition of a modern soccer classic has been completely updated to include the development of gegenpressing, pioneered by German coaches such as Ralf Rangnick and Jürgen Klopp, and its subsequent influence on world soccer.
He also looks at the tactical evolution of Pep Guardiola, the growing alternatives to possession-based football and the changing role of the goalkeeper, as well as investigating the tendency of full-backs to become midfielders and the consequent return of the back three.
The Age of Football by David Gold Blatt
This book is a sociological analysis of soccer and its impact on world culture and politics. Goldblatt explores how soccer has become a global phenomenon and how it has been used to represent political and cultural conflicts.
The author describes the cultural rise of soccer around the world, its economic transformation and its deep politicization, addressing prison soccer in Uganda and amputee soccer in Angola, the role of soccer fans in the Arab Spring, soccer presidencies Bolivian Evo Morales and Turkish Recep Erdogan, China’s stated intention to host and win the World Cup in 2050, and FIFA corruption scandals.
How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer
This book explores how soccer is closely linked to politics, the economy, and culture around the world.
Traveling the globe, Foer offers unique insight into how soccer can explain many of today’s global trends and conflicts.
From Brazil to Bosnia, and from Italy to Iran, is a revealing chronicle of how a beautiful sport and its fanatical supporters can expose the failings of society, be it terrorism, poverty, anti-Semitism or radical Islam, issues that now affects us all.
Filled with colorful characters, wry humor, and a passion for soccer and humanity in equal measure, this is a wholly original book that makes sense of the troubled times we live in.
The Soccer War by Ryszard Kapuściński
This book is a journalistic account of the civil war in Central America in the 1980s and how soccer became a means of conflict. Kapuściński describes how rivalries between soccer teams escalated to become a symbol of political and cultural divisions.
The Game of Our Lives by David Goldblatt
This book is an exploration of the history and culture of football in England. Goldblatt describes how football became an integral part of English life and how it has evolved over time.
The author argues that no social phenomenon tracks the momentous economic, social and political changes of the post-Thatcher era more illuminatingly than football, and that no cultural practice sheds more light on the aspirations and attitudes of our long and now calamitous heyday. slope.
The Game of Our Lives is a must read for the thinking football fan, it will appeal to readers of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch and Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid. It will also appeal to readers of British social history, such as David Kynaston’s Austerity Britain.