"This unique blend of reportage and memoir documents the impact and history of the FIFA World Cup. Kuper blends scrupulous reportage with evocative reflections. Soccer fans will be enthralled."
World Cup Fever
A Soccer Journey in Nine Tournaments
Description
The story of how soccer has transformed the world—as seen through nine World Cups—by one of our most talented writers on the sport.
The World Cup is the biggest sporting spectacle on Earth—a chance every four years for the greatest players to win international glory, and a month-long media event that's watched by an audience of billions.
But the tournament has changed beyond recognition since the inaugural event in Montevideo, Uruguay, in July 1930. What was once a semi-professional meeting beset by haphazard play has evolved to become a game of multinational buyouts, dubious ethics, and questionable aims—and the new era of soccer has much to tell us about the globalized world.
Simon Kuper is among the vanishingly small number of writers who have attended every World Cup since 1990. World Cup Dreams is his journey to find the heart of soccer, through the nine tournaments he's experienced first-hand—from watching matches in half-empty stands during Italia 1990 (a tournament that at times felt like a village fete) to witnessing the French triumph at home in 1998; South Africa's national dream in 2010; and the troubling legacy of Qatar in 2022.
Told on the pitch, in the stands, in the pubs, and on the streets, this is the story of how soccer has changed the world
Reviews
“A series of wise, wry and revealing reflections on football's greatest tournament and what it tells us about the world. Football Against the Enemy was one the three books that effectively invented modern football writing, and Kuper continues to lead the genre.”
“An essential warm-up for making sense of the extraordinary World Cup to come. Kuper is a wry and sharp-eyed guide to the high-camp theatre of Fifa politics and the everyday carnival of fans on city streets; to the collective euphoria and national imagining that takes place at giant outdoor match viewing; and to the way hosts are changed by their encounter with their guests.”
“A delightful memoir, travelogue, and journal, World Cup Fever is a wry and sharp-eyed account of the world's now biggest public ritual. A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle, it remains alert to the game's ever closer pact with money and power. It is an essential companion to the tournament, for it allows us to look at the sun and not be blinded.”
