What We Think About When We Think About Football
By: Simon Critchley
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2017
Place of publication: London, United Kingdom
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 196
ISBN-13: 9781781259214
Copyright date: 2017
Other titles: What We Think About When We Think About Soccer
Description: What do we think about when we think about football? Football is about so many things: memory, history, place, social class, gender (especially masculinity, but increasingly femininity too), family identity, tribal identity, national identity, the nature of groups. It is essentially collaborative, even socialist, yet it exists in a sump of greed, corruption, capitalism and autocracy.

Philosopher Simon Critchley attempts to make sense of it all, and to establish a system of aesthetics - even poetics - to show what is beautiful in the beautiful game. He explores, too, how the experience of watching football opens a particular dimension in time; how its magic wards off oblivion; how its dramas play out national identity and non-identity; how we spectators, watching football with tragic pensiveness, participate in the play. And of course, as a football fan, he writes about his heroes and villains: about Zidane and Cruyff, Clough and Revie, Shankly and Klopp.

(Source: [Profile Books](https://profilebooks.com/work/what-we-think-about-when-we-think-about-football/))
Table of contents: title: Socialism
pagenum: 1; title: Sensate ecstasy
pagenum: 22; title: De-subjectfying football
pagenum: 37; title: What is it like to be a ball?
pagenum: 45; title: Repetition without origin
pagenum: 55; title: Theatre of identity and non-identity
pagenum: 60; title: Music must resound
pagenum: 66; title: Theory and praxis
pagenum: 75; title: Stupidity
pagenum: 82; title: Intelligence
pagenum: 91; title: Zizou
pagenum: 106; title: Managerial nostalgia
pagenum: 118; title: Klopp-time
pagenum: 132; title: Football historicity
pagenum: 138; title: Fetching back
pagenum: 148; title: Disgust
pagenum: 157; title: Endnotes
pagenum: 172; title: Bibliography
pagenum: 178; title: Photo credits
pagenum: 184; title: Thanks
pagenum: 189; title: Index
pagenum: 191