Book review: Soccer Men; Profiles of the Rogues, Geniuses and Neurotics Who Dominate the World's Most Popular Sport, by Simon Kuper
du Nord, October 3, 2011
Book review by guest editor Paul Demko.Interviews with professional athletes are, as a general rule, terrible. Most players have become so jaded by the insatiable need of sports reporters for interesting (i.e. controversial) material that they inevitably revert to a tedious torrent of cliches. The best way to steer clear of trouble, after all, is to never say anything remotely interesting to anyone holding a microphone.Simon Kuper -- the renowned Dutch journalist, whose previous books include Football Against the Enemy and Soccernomics -- acknowledges this danger in the forward to his absorbing new collection of profiles, Soccer Men. Here's Kuper's description of the contemporary soccer journalist's pursuit of access to star players:Sometimes a magazine will call, and ask, 'Can you get an interview with X?' I always say that you can: if you want to spend weeks sending faxes that somehow never arrive, phoning impatient agents on their mobiles, hanging around training grounds and trading favours with boot spon