'A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global companion ... an essential companion' David Goldblatt
It's the biggest sporting competition on Earth. A four-yearly chance for our greatest footballers to realise their ultimate dream. A month-long spectacle that's watched by billions. But the inaugural World Cup, held in Uruguay in 1930, was semi-professional, poorly attended and haphazardly organised - so how did it become a bonanza of multinational sponsorship, dubious ethics and shadowy characters, and the ultimate stage for football's greatest drama?
Simon Kuper is one of very few people to have attended every World Cup since 1990. In World Cup Fever he looks back at each tournament he's experienced - from half-empty stands at Italia 90 to the French triumph as hosts in 1998, South Africa's national dream in 2010 and the troubling legacy of 2022 - to reveal a captivating portrait of sport in a globalised world.
World Cup Fever is the story of how the tournament touches and sometimes even changes our lives, by one of the best writers on the beautiful game.
Recenzijos
A delightful memoir, travelogue, and journal, Simon Kuper's World Cup Fever is a wry and sharp-eyed account of the world's now biggest public ritual. A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle, it remains alert to the game's ever closer pact with money and power. It is an essential companion to the tournament, for it allows us to look at the sun and not be blinded -- David Goldblatt, author * The Ball is Round * Praise for Barēa: A masterfully written history of the world's greatest football club -- Gary Lineker An instant classic -- Bill Buford Simply unmissable -- Amy Raphael A masterclass on football -- John Carlin Praise for Soccernomics: Magnificent * Guardian * An Arsčne Wenger of a book - more thoughtful than most of its rivals and, by football standards, positively intellectual. * The Times *
Daugiau informacijos
The story of how football transformed the world, told through nine World Cups - by one of our most talented football writers
Simon Kuper is an author and Financial Times journalist, born in Uganda and raised around the world. An Oxford graduate, he later attended Harvard as a Kennedy Scholar. He has written for the Guardian, Observer, and The Times and is also the author of Chums, The Happy Traitor, Football Against the Enemy and Barēa. He lives in Paris with his family.
