by Ramon Usall, Translated by Luke Stobart
Pluto Press
6/20/2024, paperback
SKU: 9780745350424
Think you know everything about football?
Which football match triggered a war? How did 'the beautiful game' push back against the tyranny of dictatorship, and usher another into power? Kicking Off Around the World includes 55 incredible stories in which football clubs have been a mirror to--and a maker of--world history and politics.
Full of anecdotes, surprising facts and illustrations, Ramon Usall mixes the grassroots with the greatest of all time; the unknown and the unforgettable. He looks at the women's game, football during the war in Ukraine, and stories of clubs from Britain to the US, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, from football under the Nazis to the communists and everyone in between.
Reviews:
"Usall brings us closer, through these 55 stories, to that often overlooked and underestimated aspect of football, the most social, political, and advocacy-driven one, which truly imbues clubs with soul and keeps them rooted in their respective communities" -- Carles Viñas, author of St. Pauli: Another Football is Possible
"An absolute must for anybody interested in the history of football clubs. Kicking Off Around the World not only provides riveting stories, it also reveals surprises about the politics of football that will keep you engaged throughout the whole book." -- Stephen Ortega, Global Sports Initiative, Harvard University
About the Contributors:
Ramon Usall is a writer, academic and political activist. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Lleida, and regularly writes in different media on the relationship between sport, history, society and politics. He is the author of Futbol per la llibertat, which won the Josep Vallverdú Essay Prize.
Luke Stobart is an academic and writer, as well as a translator and interpreter. He is a lecturer in Spanish history and politics at King's College, London, and economic history at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is currently writing a book on contemporary left-wing politics and movements in the Spanish state.