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    Soccer in Sun and Shadow
    Soccer in Sun and Shadow
    Soccer in Sun and Shadow
    Ebook409 pages3 hours

    Soccer in Sun and Shadow

    By Eduardo Galeano

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    One of Sports Illustrated’s Top 100 Sports Books of All Time—a history of soccer that “stands out like Pelé on a field of second-stringers” (The New Yorker).

    The beautiful game deserves a beautiful book, and Eduardo Galeano—one of Latin America’s most acclaimed authors—has written it. From Aztec champions sacrificed to appease the gods, to the goals that were literally scored into wooden posts in Victorian England, to Spain’s victory in the 2010 World Cup, Soccer in Sun and Shadow is a history of the sport unlike any other.

    Galeano portrays the irruption of South American soccer that made the game sublime: the elegant, mischievous, joyful style based on deft dribbling, close passes, and quick changes in rhythm, perfected by poor black children who had no toy but a rag ball. He describes the superstitions that vex players, the martyrdom of referees, the exquisite misery of fans, the sad denouement of stars past their prime.

    Striding across the pages are players born with the ball—and entire nations—at their feet: Arthur Friedenreich, the son of a German immigrant and a black washerwoman, who first brought Brazilian style from the slums into the stadiums; Brazil’s Garrincha, whose body, warped by polio, could make the ball dance; and the Dutch great Ruud Gullit, who campaigned against apartheid on and off the pitch. And, of course, Beckenbauer, Pelé, Cruyff, and Maradona, a man blessed with “the hand of God” and a left foot equally as divine.

    Soccer in Sun and Shadow traces the rise of the soccer industry and the concurrent voyage “from beauty to duty”: attempts to impose a soccer of lightning speed and brute force, one that disdains fantasy and forfeits play for results. Eduardo Galeano, who describes himself as “a beggar for good soccer,” gives the world’s most popular sport all the poetry, passion, and politics it deserves.

    Editor's Note

    Lyrical beauty…

    A lyrical look into one of the world’s most popular sports. Galeano constantly weaves historical retelling with his own personal narratives, creating a potent mix of beautiful musings about the state of soccer.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateJun 3, 2014
    ISBN9781497639041
    Soccer in Sun and Shadow
    Author

    Eduardo Galeano

    Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) was one of Latin America’s most distinguished writers. He was the author of the trilogy Memory of Fire, Open Veins of Latin America, Soccer in Sun and Shadow, Days and Nights of Love and War, The Book of Embraces, Walking Words, Voices of Time, Upside Down, Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone, and Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History. Born in Montevideo, he lived in exile in Argentina and Spain for years before returning to Uruguay. His work has inspired popular and classical composers and playwrights from all over the world and has been translated into twenty-eight languages. He was the recipient of many international prizes, including the first Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom, the American Book Award, the Casa de las Américas Prize, and the First Distinguished Citizen of the region by the countries of Mercosur.

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    Reviews for Soccer in Sun and Shadow

    4/5

    8 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This slim volume delivered the cultural history and excitement of soccer (the world's most popular sport) to a boy raised in an immersion of baseball. Akin to the stories I know of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Cofax, etc. To instill the anticipation, I reread this with the advent of the World Cup every four years.Not earth shattering, but fun.
    • 3/5
      Being literary reflections on football by a Uruguayan novelist. The pieces are short and easily-digestable, but they are also more than a little arid, and you spend a lot of time reading about personages the author assumes that you know, and you probably don't.
    • 3/5
      I like Eduardo Galeano as a writer. I think he tried to do something interesting here and failed. Simply the book was weighed down with to much other stuff. Not only was it a paean to soccer but it tried to be a typical Galeano effort as well - a study of the North & South, a work of world history, a critique of capitalism, etc. All of it simply too much weight for this slender book to bear. The vignettes are uneven but form a good base to branch out from. The melancholy he references in his last paragraph is what remains with me as well after I have put the book down.
    • 4/5
      Perhaps the best part of reading this book is taking the literary thought, and placing it in the realm of soccer. In my euro-centric view of soccer, it was nice to be reminded that some of the most beautiful soccer can be witnessed in my own hemisphere.

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    Soccer in Sun and Shadow - Eduardo Galeano

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