David Goldblatt, in this interesting soccer history book, The Ball Is Round, explains about the ascendance of football from a muddled folk ritual to a money-minting global entertainment industry. It comprises of stories of fans, clubs, owners, managers, national teams and a full history of who won and who lost apart from the history of money, power, markets and states. It is a chronicle that tries to identify the line where the territories of glory and the realms of power have been crossed. You will find stories of footballing legends like Pele, Maradona, George Best and Puskas in this book.
There is much more on offer like the anti-futbol of Estudiantes de la Plata, unrivaled Hungarians, futbol arte of Brazil 1970 and so on. It also provides insights on Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mussolini’s Italy, Adenauer's West Germany apart from cultural meanings and political uses of football in Peron's Argentina. It also browses from the post colonial political sympathies of African football to the cooking up the history of the football boot; from the history of stadium architecture to the architecture of might in worldwide's football's leadership creations.
There might be no global cultural beliefs than soccer and the rules of the soccer are universal when compared to rites of birth and marriage. There is no religion of this world that matches soccer’s geographical scope and the greatest spectacle of all is the World Cup final. In this exceptional tour de force, David Goldblatt narrates the broad story of soccer's ascendancy from disorganized common people right to the world's commonest sport-now poised to fully institute itself in the United States of America. Already celebrated internationally, The Ball Is Round elucidates soccer's character in the political and social chronicles of forward-looking societies, but never drops off sight of the beauty, delight, and fervor of the game itself.
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