Spanish Football Books
|
Spanish Football: Our
Recommended Reading List |
| Morbo - The Story of Spanish Football
|
|
| English
writer Phil Ball has put the history of Spanish football into the
context of the epomymous Morbo. Hard to pin down in translation
(though the author manfully spends a chapter trying to explain the term
in its fullest sense), "morbo" encapsulates the fierce rivalry
across a club scene fragmented by history, language and politics. The
bitter feeling between Barcelona and Real Madrid has, of course, been
well-documented elsewhere. Here that famous rivalry is only one
component of a landscape of antagonism. In particular, the Basque
country in the north-west and Seville in the south both provide breeding
grounds for a healthy portion of "morbo", and receive Ball's
attention accordingly. The narrative captures the essence of that
feeling perfectly, without failing to inform on a historical basis. A
splendid chapter traces the ancestry of football in Spain back to the
labourers in the English-owned copper mines in Huelva, Andalucia. While
Spanish club football has always had its stars, from Di Stefano to
Cruyff and Butragueno through to Raul and Luis Figo today, Ball shows
that there is a greater force running in its lifeblood. Yet still there
remains a paradox; he analyses the historical under-achievement of the
Spanish national side in major international tournaments.
|
 |
| Barca: A People's Passion
|
|
| From
the English businessmen who founded the club, through Cruyff, Maradona,
Lineker, Venables, Robson and Ronaldo, FC Barcelona, European football
giant and quintessential embodiment of Catalonian pride, has been built
on the efforts of foreign mercenaries.
In interview and analysis, Jimmy Burns
uses the experiences of these outsiders as his own passport to the heart
of the Camp Nou, returning with a hugely enjoyable history of the team
and it's fanatically nationalistic support.
Unique among the world's biggest clubs,
Barcelona has stayed true to its origins as a quasi-democratic
institution. It is effectively a private members club, made up of the
120,000 supporters whose subscriptions bankroll the team, but a sense of
ownership extends across Catalonia itself.
|
 |
| The Hand of God: The Life of Diego...
|
|
| Hand of God is the definitive biography
of one of the greatest players in the history of world soccer, a man who
at one time was arguably the most brilliant and most controversial
figure in all of sport: Argentina's Diego Maradona. This extraordinary
story moves from the slums of Buenos Aires, where Maradona was born in
1960, to the packed stadiums of the United States, where he was ignobly
expelled in 1994 after failing a drug test. In his rise to fame - and
notoriety - Maradona played for some of the world's greatest teams,
leading Argentina to their second World Cup championship in 1986, and
captaining Napoli to two Italian League titles. But the pressures of
stardom led to a cocaine addiction that caused the charismatic and
stormy footballer to womanize, associate with organized crime, and
become a pawn in Argentinean political gamesmanship. This revealing
examination of a complex sporting genius offers unique insight into a
sordid world of exploitation, corruption, and intrigue.
|
 |
| White Storm: 100 Years of Real Madrid
|
|
| Real
Madrid have won 28 league titles, eight European cups, 12 Spanish cups,
two UEFA cups and three World Cup Championship titles since the
beginning of the 20th century. The clubs story however, is much more
than the mere sum of its achievements. There have been legends at every
step, and behind the shine of trophies there is the darker side of the
club's association with fascism - its role as the pure white ambassador
to Franco's jackbooted vision of a centralized Spain. |
 |
| Ajax, Barcelona, Cruyff
|
|
| Johan Cruyff stands among the
elite in the pantheon of football's greats. Perhaps, only Pelé ever
surpassed him. And that is arguable. Ajax Barcelona Cruyff
constitutes a collection of interviews with Holland's greatest ever
player conducted by Dutch journalists Barend and Van Dorp. Most of the
conversations transcribed here touch on the issues which followed Cruyff
throughout his successful career as player and coach, both with Ajax of
Amsterdam, and Barcelona.
|
 |
| Search for more books about European football
|
|
|
