Angels with dirty faces : how Argentinian soccer defined a nation and changed the game forever by Wilson, Jonathan, 1976- author instant download

Angels with dirty faces : how Argentinian soccer defined a nation and changed the game forever by Wilson, Jonathan, 1976- author instant download

xviii, 411 pages : 23 cm, Argentina has produced Alfredo Di Stéfano, Diego Maradona, and Lionel Messi--some of the greatest soccer players of all time. The country's rich, volatile history is by turns sublime and ruthlessly pragmatic. A nation obsessed with soccer, Argentina lives and breathes the game, its theories, and its myths. Jonathan Wilson lived in Buenos Aires, in an apartment between La Recoleta Cemetery--where the country's leading poets and politicians are buried--and the Huracán stadium. Like his apartment, Angels with Dirty Faces lies at the intersection of politics, literature, and sport. Here, he chronicles the evolution of Argentinian soccer: the appropriation of the British game, the golden age of la nuestra, the exuberant style of playing that developed as Juan Perón led the country into isolation, a hardening into the brutal methods of anti-fútbol, the fusing of beauty and efficacy under César Luis Menotti, and the emergence of all-time greats in Maradona and Messi against a backdrop of economic turbulence, Includes bibliographical references and index, Prologue: Utopias and their discontents, 1535-2016 -- Part one: The birth of a nation, 1863-1930. This English game -- A second birth -- The global stage -- Argentinidad -- The coming of money -- The Rioplatense supremacy -- Part two: The golden age, 1930-1958. Days of glory -- The coming of professionalism -- The rise of River -- Modernity and the Budapest butcher -- The knights of anguish -- The rise of Juan Perón -- El Dorado -- Back home -- Our way -- The zenith and beyond -- The last of the angels -- Part three: After the fall, 1958-1973. The death of innocence -- The contrarian and the growth of anti-fútbol -- The mouse's nest -- The open market -- The consecration of pragmatism -- Back on the horse -- El Caudillo -- The moral victory -- A peculiar glory -- Scorning the path of roses -- Part four: Rebirth and conflict, 1973-1978. A tainted triumph -- The gypsy, the car salesman, and the old