The Age of Football: Soccer and the 21st Century

by David Goldblatt

Overview

A monumental exploration of soccer and society in our time—by its preeminent historian.

In the twenty-first century, soccer commands the allegiance, interest, and engagement of more people in more places than any other phenomenon in the world. David Goldblatt—author of the acclaimed, best-selling The Ball Is Round—charts the sport’s global cultural ascent, economic transformation, and deep politicization.

Based on a decade of research and reporting, The Age of Football sheds light on the greatest issues of our time—including globalization, immigration, nationalism—and the role that soccer plays. From soccer’s connections to social discord in the Middle East as a site for protest and a tool for dictatorships to the reasons behind its surprising surge in popularity in China, India, and the United States, Goldblatt reveals that this massively popular sport is vital to understanding our social, political, and economic lives. Tracking the rise of interest in women’s teams throughout the world and the controversy imbedded in the domestic football associations emerging across nations in Africa, he explores the use (and misuse) of soccer in the global advancement of equality and human rights.

With breathtaking scope and unparalleled knowledge of the game, The Age of Football proves that whether you call it football or soccer, you can’t make sense of the modern world without understanding its most popular sport

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393635119
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/18/2020
Pages:	560
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

David Goldblatt is the author of three acclaimed books about soccer, including the international bestseller The Ball Is Round. His podcast, Game of Our Lives, has recently been nominated for a Webby Award. He teaches at Pitzer College in Los Angeles and lives in Bristol, England.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Football Is First 1

1 The Living and the Dead: Afro Football Fever 29

2 Regime vs Street vs Mosque: Three-sided Football in the Middle East 81

3 From the Left Wing: South American Fútbol and the Pink Tide 135

4 This Storm is What We Call Progress: Football and the European Project 193

5 Continental Drift: The Fragmented Worlds of Asian Football 313

6 Trouble in Paradise: Football in the Americas 369

7 The Game Beyond the Game: The Fall of the House of Blatter 401

8 Back in the USSR? Football in Putin's Russia 429

Conclusion: The Global Potemkin Village: World Cup 2018 457

Acknowledgements 467

Notes 469

Index 523

Picture Credits 553

Editorial Reviews

03/02/2020

Sportswriter Goldblatt (The Ball Is Round) presents a titanic, often dense volume on “the beautiful game” and its cultural transcendency and relevance in the 21st century. The sport’s global popularity, Goldblatt argues, has resulted in soccer’s increased attention from politicians, not for “merely symbolic” reasons but also as “an object of state policy and intervention.” Goldblatt begins in Africa, where he explores the roots of colonialism and the ways that soccer proliferated across the continent, focusing on the cultural significance of South Africa hosting the 2010 World Cup. He then observes soccer’s rise to prominence in the Middle East and highlights the controversy surrounding the bribery scandal and backroom negotiations behind the decision for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup, while also noting the subsequent charges of human rights violations regarding the migrant labor force building the stadiums. He closes with chapters on FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, and corruption, particularly about former FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s outsize power and his 2015 resignation amid a sprawling corruption scandal, and on the growing importance of soccer in Putin’s Russia, exemplified by the leader’s growing desire to spread the country’s “sphere of influence” in global sports outside of the Olympic sports. Goldblatt’s work is invaluable for a wide swath of readers, from soccer fans to those with interests in politics, cultural studies, and social justice. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"A must for any sports collection."

Booklist

03/06/2020

Soccer (or football, outside of the United States) is the most popular sport in the world, and still growing. Author and podcaster Goldblatt (The Ball Is Round) spent a decade researching soccer's past century, including its political, financial, and societal impact around the globe; the rise of the women's game; and the corruption and controversy that has inevitably crept into the sport. Also included in this definitive history are examinations of soccer's uneasy associations with factions such as the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), multibillionaire owners, and the betting industry. From Russia and Australia to Asia and the Americas, Goldblatt's epic yet accessible study reveals how soccer is interwoven with every facet of the world's cultures. Fans of the game will find this absorbing, all-encompassing look at the globally beloved sport both reflects and unites humankind. VERDICT Goldblatt's talent for storytelling and clear organization of a vast amount of information makes this an important cornerstone addition for sports collections in both public and academic libraries, and readers with an interest in international socioeconomics.—Janet Davis, Darien P.L., CT

Library Journal

★ 2019-11-20
A learned, wide-ranging study of football—soccer, that is—as something that's much more than just a game.

The French philosopher Guy Debord devoted much attention to the spectacle, which is meant, writes Goldblatt (The Games: A Global History of the Olympics, 2016), to "not just distract but commodify, blind and stupefy too." That's one function of sports—namely, to keep us from recognizing what's going on around us. The author, who may know as much about soccer as any person on the planet, takes the story far beyond that, into realms that particularly embrace politics, those systems that make things happen to people. One instance among dozens is the place of soccer in Hungary, a nation headed by a neofascist who once played the game himself and who has built an outsized stadium in his home village, "held up by huge, breathtaking trusses of laminated mahogany set in the great fan patterns of a Gothic cathedral." Other intellectuals come and go in Goldblatt's pages, including the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who commented, "football is popular because stupidity is popular." The sneer is unnecessary, but the fact is that soccer is the world's single most popular spot—and is even gaining ground in the U.S. and China, which had previously ignored it. Goldblatt does a lot of on-the-ground footwork to track the game's fortunes, observing that Asia is emerging as a soccer power; Africa has superb players hampered by lack of money; and the game is growing by leaps even as the corruption surrounding it is breathtaking and even if it often seems an expression of warfare by other means, as when, in a match between South Korea and China, "Chinese authorities surrounded the Korean squad and the stadium with thousands of troops." There's no corner of the globe that Goldblatt doesn't explore, and his book updates and overshadows Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World (2004).

Superb: Essential reading not just for fans of the sport, but also for students of geopolitics.

Kirkus Reviews

"Reading David Goldblatt, you don’t just understand football better. You understand the world a bit better, too. The breadth of his research is unmatched, and the writing is always a pleasure."

Simon Kuper

"Scintillating."

Guardian - Barney Ronay

"[Goldblatt] writes about soccer with the expansive eye of a social and cultural critic."

Wall Street Journal - David Runciman

"Next time people tell you politics has no place in football, tell them to read David Goldblatt’s The Age of Football."

Cas Mudde

"A globe-trotting magnum opus."

Sunday Times - Tobias Jones

"Superb.… Goldblatt provides vignettes and beautifully crafted case studies, country by country, of contemporary politics and economics, told through, and around, the global game."

TLS