Description
Book Synopsis''Football is a pleasure that hurts''
This unashamedly emotional history of football is a homage to the romance and drama, spectacle and passion of a ''great pagan mass''. Through stories of superstition, heartbreak, tragedy, luck, heroes and villains, those who lived for football and those who died for it, Eduardo Galeano celebrates the glory of a game that - however much the rich and powerful try to control it - still retains its magic.
''The Uruguayan whose writing got right to the heart of football ... readers were never in doubt of the warmth of the blood running through his veins'' Guardian
''Galeano can run rings round our glamorous football intelligentsia'' When Saturday Comes
''Stands out like Pele on a field of second-stringers'' New Yorker
Trade ReviewGaleano can run rings round our glamorous football intelligentsia. * When Saturday Comes *
Stands out like Pele on a field of second-stringers. * New Yorker *
Galeano has a style of a great left half. He constantly switches the direction of play. His observations are acute. He delivers with an air of insouciance which cannot mask his mastery * Herald *
Uplifting, reckless, ironic, impassioned... sparkles with supple imagery and a fine dry wit. * Independent *
Deeply humane . . . he has produced literature that will endure, monuments to the imagination -- Toby Green * Independent *
