Book Review

Eduardo Galeano 

"Soccer In Sun And Shadow"

Available at the Ludington Public Library in Bryn Mawr, 

and here via Amazon.

Picked this up on a rainy day with Sam at the library...a pending getaway to NOLA with the bride led me to the travel books section (hardly necessary- Beignets/Booze/Blues, right?)  The soccer books just happen to be within sight of the travel books!

Anyway, I won't do the full-on book report here, but it's a charming read for fans of the game.  It's also a good motivator for a player.  I doubt that anyone will describe any of the things I did as a player so eloquently as Galeano does the likes of Garrincha, di Stefano, Yashin, and Maradona, among many other greats:  

(of Domingos da Guia, a defender) 

A man of imperturbable style, he was always whistling and looking the other way.  He scorned speed.  He would play in slow motion, master of suspense, lover of leisure: the art of bringing the ball out of the box slowly, calmly, was baptized domingada.  When he finally let the ball go, he did so without ever running and without wanting to, because it saddened him to be left without her.

151 essays span a mere 210 pages, and each a joyful account of the very human nature on display in every aspect of the game from the use of black magic to ensure victory, to the pants-off goal that sank Italy in an early World Cup.  Even the sad tales are celebrations of the tragic, each of us can identify with the lowest moments of teams, players, managers and fans.  Of Maradona, Galeano adroitly says, "He played, he won, he peed, he lost."  Part poetry, part satire, humanitarian work and political commentary, the book is a love letter to the game, to the essence of what makes the game a joy to a kid with a ball.  Running throughout is a common thread of the joy of playing, of seeing the impossible accomplished (L'pool V. Oldham this past weekend, for one!) and the happiness the game can deliver on and off the park.

I'll credit Galeano with my favorite soccer quote ("Tell me how you play, and I'll tell you who you are), though it's more likely an ancient proverb with origins long since lost.  Galeano, like the best historians, provides such gems a life raft on which to float for eternity; Homer's name lives on, but only by the good grace of the stories he likewise kept alive for posterity.  I may have learned more from this volume about the game than from any other experience I've had with the game.  Who else has brought Camus' connection to the game into the daylight?  Not my professors of Philosophy at Kenyon!  (For fun, check it out here!)

Now, friends, read up and tell me how you play...