The Soccer Literature Quick Pick – Soccer in the Sun and Shadows by Eduardo Galeano
du Nord, May 22, 2012
It’s not often that your non-soccer friends offer up astonishing soccer reading advice, but just a few weeks ago, that happened to me. “Graham” Cory said as we sat on his couch watching an old show, “I have a book you need to read. It was the first book to make me understand why people all over the world love and enjoy soccer.” Two weeks later he remembered which pile the book was buried under, and handed me a tattered, green, paperback book written by a Uruguayan man named Eduardo Galeano. Inside this magnificent book, Eduardo explores the good and bad. The sun and shadows. The dark and light of soccer that manifest on and off the field. From the beauty and joy that spring forth from pure soccer light, to the darkness that oozes forth from global soccer marketing, greed, lust, and unbridled exploitation. Eduardo sums up the whole of soccer in hundreds of short, sparkling, lyrical essays. Each position, each major organization, and hundreds of huge soccer goals remembered in hundreds of different ways. Playe