The Human Affairs as Written in the History of Soccer

This week for Good Reads for Sheltering in Place, Richard M. Cho recommends one of the best sports books as the German soccer league, Bundesliga, begins to live stream games without audiences.

Soccer in Sun and Shadow by Eduardo Galeano

Better known in Academia as the indispensable chronicler of injustice inflicted on the Latin American continent (Open Veins of Latin America), Eduardo Galeano was also a lifelong soccer aficionado who penned a poetic yet rapturous book on the subject. His flair for joyous storytelling comes vividly alive in more than a hundred and fifty brief chapters (hence an ideal e-book reading experience). His passion is utterly contagious. Every sentence is a gem. Here's how he describes the referee: "His job is to make himself hated. The only universal sentiment in soccer: everybody hates him. He gets only catcalls, never applause.... The losers owe their loss to him and the winners triumph in spite of him." He describes the games during the 1962 World Cup thus: "The Chileans had beaten Italy in a match that was pitched battle, and they also beat Switzerland and the Soviet Union. They gobbled up the spaghetti, chocolate, and vodka, but choked on the coffee: Brazil won 4-2." In 1966 World Cup: "Sixteen teams took part: ten from Europe, five from Americas, and, strange as it seems, North Korea. Astonishingly, the Koreans eliminated Italy with a goal by Pak, a dentist from the city of Pyongyang who played soccer in his spare time. On the Italian squad were no less than Gianni Rivera and Sandro Mazzola. Pier Paolo Pasolini used to say they played soccer in lucid prose interspersed with sparkling verse, but that dentist left them speechless."

As the title suggests, the book narrates, using perfect metaphors and magical-realist descriptions, both the heavenly euphoria that is soccer and inevitable commercialization of it that has ushered in shadows in an otherwise sun-filled stadium. Galeano tells of how soccer in Latin America was in the beginning a colonial import from Europe, of scathing racism that is a persistent thorn in the green playing field, and of those impossible success stories of downtrodden children whose only toy was a soccer ball. Did you know that Albert Camus was the goalkeeper for the University of Algiers soccer team? He chose the position because he was poor and "in that position your shoes don't wear out as fast." There is much to admire in this book, but Eduardo's genius shines brightest when he juxtaposes momentous historical events to each year of the FIFA World Cup, which first began in 1930, when Uruguay was the very first unlikely champion. In the 1938 World Cup, "Germany's side incorporated five players from recently annexed Austria. Thus reinforced, with swastikas on their chests and all the Nazi symbols of power at hand...," and in the final round which was Italy against Hungry, "For Mussolini, winning was a matter of state. On the eve of the match, the Italian players received a three-word telegram from Rome, signed by the Fascist leader: Win or die. They did not have to die because Italy won 4-2." Just like how Marx saw religion, soccer can be the opiate of the people: Worshipping, fanatical devotion, and salvation all aptly describe what soccer entails. Yet, its magic is none like others, so Galeano infers, and the game will continue as long as we inhabit this planet.

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Richard M. Cho is research librarian for Humanities and Literature at UC Irvine and contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books