Angels with dirty faces
Subtitle: how Argentinian soccer defined a nation and changed the game forever
By: Jonathan Wilson
Publisher: Nation Books
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 411
ISBN-13: 9781568585512
Subjects: Soccer; Soccer players; History
Description: Argentina has produced Alfredo Di Stéfano, Diego Maradona, and Lionel Messi--some of the greatest soccer players of all time. The country's rich, volatile history is by turns sublime and ruthlessly pragmatic. A nation obsessed with soccer, Argentina lives and breathes the game, its theories, and its myths. Jonathan Wilson lived in Buenos Aires, in an apartment between La Recoleta Cemetery--where the country's leading poets and politicians are buried--and the Huracán stadium. Like his apartment, Angels with Dirty Faces lies at the intersection of politics, literature, and sport. Here, he chronicles the evolution of Argentinian soccer: the appropriation of the British game, the golden age of la nuestra, the exuberant style of playing that developed as Juan Perón led the country into isolation, a hardening into the brutal methods of anti-fútbol, the fusing of beauty and efficacy under César Luis Menotti, and the emergence of all-time greats in Maradona and Messi against a backdrop of economic turbulence.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Prologue: Utopias and their discontents, 1535-2016; title: Part one: The birth of a nation, 1863-1930. This English game; title: A second birth; title: The global stage; title: Argentinidad; title: The coming of money; title: The Rioplatense supremacy; title: Part two: The golden age, 1930-1958. Days of glory; title: The coming of professionalism; title: The rise of River; title: Modernity and the Budapest butcher; title: The knights of anguish; title: The rise of Juan Perón; title: El Dorado; title: Back home; title: Our way; title: The zenith and beyond; title: The last of the angels; title: Part three: After the fall, 1958-1973. The death of innocence; title: The contrarian and the growth of anti-fútbol; title: The mouse's nest; title: The open market; title: The consecration of pragmatism; title: Back on the horse; title: El Caudillo; title: The moral victory; title: A peculiar glory; title: Scorning the path of roses; title: Part four: Rebirth and conflict, 1973-1978. A tainted triumph; title: The gypsy, the car salesman, and the old ways; title: The little pigeon; title: The miracle of Huracán; title: The return of Perón; title: Of heroes and chickens; title: The age of the devils; title: Lorenzo and the Boca fulfillment; title: The first steps to glory; title: Glory in a time of terror; title: Part five: A new hope, 1978-1990. The nativity; title: The unlikeliest champions; title: The pride of the nation; title: The return of anti-fútbol; title: Maradana in Europe; title: Optimism and the Libertadores; title: His finest hour; title: Burying the chicken; title: The Neapolitan glory; title: Moral champions again; title: Part six: Debt and disillusionment, 1990-2002. The third way; title: Tabárez and the Boca revival; title: The fatal urine of Foxborough; title: The rise of Vélez and the River revival; title: The failure of neoliberalism; title: The dwindling of a genius; title: The lure of the past; title: Boca's age of glory; title: The crash; title: Part seven: Over the water, 2002-2015. The second coming; title: The ascent from the abyss; title: The growth of the legend; title: The list in the sock; title: The ecstasy of gold; title: The end of the affair; title: Messi and the Messiah; title: Distrust and short-termism; title: Home discomforts; title: The little witch, the Pope, and the gleeful chicken; title: The ongoing drought; title: The eternal laurels.