Soccer in a Football World

Soccer in a Football World PDF Author: David Wangerin
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1592138853
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
David Beckham’s arrival in Los Angeles represents the latest attempt to jump-start soccer in the United States where, David Wangerin says, it “remains a minority sport.” With the rest of the globe so resolutely attached to the game, why is soccer still mostly dismissed by Americans? Calling himself “a soccer fan born in the wrong country at nearly the wrong time,” Wangerin writes with wit and passion about the sport’s struggle for acceptance in Soccer in a Football World. A Wisconsin native, he traces the fragile history of the game from its early capitulation to gridiron on college campuses to the United States’ impressive performance at the 2002 World Cup. Placing soccer in the context of American sport in general, he chronicles its enduring struggle alongside the country’s more familiar pursuits and recounts the shifting attitudes toward the “foreign” game. His story is one that will enrich the perspective of anyone whose heart beats for the sport, and is curious as to where the game has been in America—and where it might be headed.

Soccer in a Football World

Soccer in a Football World PDF Author: David Wangerin
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1592138853
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 359

Get Book Here

Book Description
David Beckham’s arrival in Los Angeles represents the latest attempt to jump-start soccer in the United States where, David Wangerin says, it “remains a minority sport.” With the rest of the globe so resolutely attached to the game, why is soccer still mostly dismissed by Americans? Calling himself “a soccer fan born in the wrong country at nearly the wrong time,” Wangerin writes with wit and passion about the sport’s struggle for acceptance in Soccer in a Football World. A Wisconsin native, he traces the fragile history of the game from its early capitulation to gridiron on college campuses to the United States’ impressive performance at the 2002 World Cup. Placing soccer in the context of American sport in general, he chronicles its enduring struggle alongside the country’s more familiar pursuits and recounts the shifting attitudes toward the “foreign” game. His story is one that will enrich the perspective of anyone whose heart beats for the sport, and is curious as to where the game has been in America—and where it might be headed.

Soccer around the World

Soccer around the World PDF Author: Charles Parrish
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 727

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Book Description
Two leading sports authorities explore the culture of soccer around the world, considering the sport as a means to better understand a society's past, present, and future. How popular is soccer worldwide? Here's one indicator: 3.2 billion people—nearly half of the planet's population—tuned in to watch the 2010 World Cup on television. Soccer matches attract a gargantuan number of fans from around the globe due to the popularity of the sport itself but also because of the nationalism it inspires and the entertainment spectacle of the big games. Distinguished authors and sports authorities, Charles Parrish and John Nauright, examine how soccer impacts societies worldwide by shaping national identities, providing common ground for diplomatic issues, and forging economic and social development. This one-volume geographic guide studies the places in which soccer has a major impact, examining each region's teams, major tournaments, key players, and international performance. The authors organize the book geographically by region and country, with entries reviewing the history of the sport and cultural impact on the area. Each profile concludes with fascinating game-based statistics, such as winners of major tournaments and top goal scorers. The book covers 20 countries including England, Brazil, Egypt, the United States, Cameroon, and Korea.

How Soccer Explains the World

How Soccer Explains the World PDF Author: Franklin Foer
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061864706
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
“An eccentric, fascinating exposé of a world most of us know nothing about. . . . Bristles with anecdotes that are almost impossible to believe.” —New York Times Book Review “Terrific. . . . A travelogue full of important insights into both cultural change and persistence. . . . Foer’s soccer odyssey lends weight to the argument that a humane world order is possible.” — Washington Post Book World A groundbreaking work—named one of the five most influential sports books of the decade by Sports Illustrated—How Soccer Explains the World is a unique and brilliantly illuminating look at soccer, the world’s most popular sport, as a lens through which to view the pressing issues of our age, from the clash of civilizations to the global economy. From Brazil to Bosnia, and Italy to Iran, this is an eye-opening chronicle of how a beautiful sport and its fanatical followers can highlight the fault lines of a society, whether it’s terrorism, poverty, anti-Semitism, or radical Islam—issues that now have an impact on all of us. Filled with blazing intelligence, colorful characters, wry humor, and an equal passion for soccer and humanity, How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

From Football to Soccer

From Football to Soccer PDF Author: Brian D. Bunk
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252052781
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Rediscovering soccer's long history in the U.S. Across North America, native peoples and colonists alike played a variety of kicking games long before soccer's emergence in the late 1800s. Brian D. Bunk examines the development and social impact of these sports through the rise of professional soccer after World War I. As he shows, the various games called football gave women an outlet as athletes and encouraged men to form social bonds based on educational experience, occupation, ethnic identity, or military service. Football also followed young people to college as higher education expanded in the nineteenth century. University play, along with the arrival of immigrants from the British Isles, helped spark the creation of organized soccer in the United States—and the beautiful game's transformation into a truly international sport. A multilayered look at one game’s place in American life, From Football to Soccer refutes the notion of the U.S. as a land outside of football history.

Soccer Empire

Soccer Empire PDF Author: Laurent Dubois
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520945743
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
When France both hosted and won the World Cup in 1998, the face of its star player, Zinedine Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. During the 2006 World Cup finals, Zidane stunned the country by ending his spectacular career with an assault on an Italian player. In Soccer Empire, Laurent Dubois illuminates the connections between empire and sport by tracing the story of World Cup soccer, from the Cup’s French origins in the 1930s to Africa and the Caribbean and back again. As he vividly recounts the lives of two of soccer’s most electrifying players, Zidane and his outspoken teammate, Lilian Thuram, Dubois deepens our understanding of the legacies of empire that persist in Europe and brilliantly captures the power of soccer to change the nation and the world.

The Shared Origins of Football, Rugby, and Soccer

The Shared Origins of Football, Rugby, and Soccer PDF Author: Christopher Rowley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442246197
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
In today’s hypercompetitive world, contact sports bring about fierce rivalries between fans, between players, and even between countries. From the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Michigan Wolverines in grid iron football, to the Australian Wallabies and the New Zealand All Blacks in rugby, to Real Madrid and Barcelona in association football (soccer), contact sports incite a passion few other games can replicate. Though these modern contests of brawn might vary in ways both subtle and significant, they draw on a common history that dates back centuries. Overcoming rulers, conquerors, and religious leaders, the games of ancient times survived and flourished to become the sports we know and love today. In The Shared Origins of Football, Rugby, and Soccer, Christopher Rowley reveals how ball games arose and took shape into seven distinct forms: American football, association football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, rugby league football, and rugby union football. Rowley traces ball games back to the Mayans in Meso-America and the Han Dynasty in China, through ancient Egypt and Greece, and on through the Cradle of football in England and Scotland. His narrative includes the relatively recent development of rules, codes, and leagues and concludes with the current state of football around the world. The Shared Origins of Football, Rugby, and Soccer takes the reader through this unique odyssey in world history by bringing to life the little-known games of the past. Rowley recreates ancient games from around the world based on surviving documents and illustrations, and relates first-hand accounts of fossil games still played today. Through careful research, the common ancestry of our modern seven codes of football is finally pieced together to create a fascinating history of the world of football that we know today.

The Country of Football

The Country of Football PDF Author: Roger Kittleson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520279085
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
"In time for Brazil's hosting of the 2014 World Cup, this book uses the stories of star players and other key figures (based on over 40 interviews) to create a contemporary history of Brazilian soccer from the 1950s to the present. It also explores race and class tensions in Brazil and shows how soccer is central to the country's dramatic trajectory toward modernity and economic power"--

The World's Game

The World's Game PDF Author: Bill Murray
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252067181
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Known as much for the emotional outbursts and violence of its fans as for its own stars, soccer (or football, as it is known outside the United States) is a global game. Its international controlling body, FIFA, boasts more members than the United Nations. Bill Murray traces the growth of what during pre-industrial times was called "the simplest game" through its codification in the nineteenth century to the 1994 World Cup, held for the first time in the United States. Murray weaves the sport's growth into the culture and politics of the countries where it has been taken up, analyzing its reputation as a game that has seen more riots and on-field brawls than all other types of football combined. He vividly illustrates how soccer has become the world's most popular sport, one that has resisted the interference of politicians, dictators, and profiteers and - more recently - the demands of television, through which it has spread to virtually every corner of the globe. The World's Game will be entertaining and enlightening to anyone from the most avid, knowledgeable fan to those who merely hope to learn a little about the sport.

Fever Pitch

Fever Pitch PDF Author: Nick Hornby
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141926546
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
*WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR* Fever Pitch is Nick Hornby's million-copy-selling, award-winnning football classic 'A spanking 7-0 away win of a football book. . . inventive, honest, funny, heroic, charming' Independent For many people watching football is mere entertainment, to some it's more like a ritual; but to others, its highs and lows provide a narrative to life itself. But, for Nick Hornby, his devotion to the game has provided one of few constants in a life where the meaningful things - like growing up, leaving home and forming relationships, both parental and romantic - have rarely been as simple or as uncomplicated as his love for Arsenal. Brimming with wit and honesty, Fever Pitch, catches perfectly what it really means to be a football fan - and in doing so, what it means to be a man. 'Hornby has put his finger on truths that have been unspoken for generations' Irish Times 'Funny, wise and true' Roddy Doyle

The World Through Soccer

The World Through Soccer PDF Author: Tamir Bar-On
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 9781442234734
Category : Soccer
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book uses soccer to provide insights into worldwide politics, religion, business, ethics, leadership, childhood, philosophy, and art. It examines the way soccer influences and reflects these aspects of society, and vice versa. Each chapter includes a selection of players ...