Soccer in Sun and Shadow Paperback – August 6, 2013

Eduardo Galeano is a renowned author in Uruguay and across South America is well known. He is also a life-long football fan. This little volume does not pose as an encyclopedic history of soccer (for that, see the outstanding history of football, 'The Ball is Round'), so do not expect such. If you just begin reading, without pre-existing assumptions, I think you will be entertained, enlightened, and find something to enjoy on almost ever page. Written in the form of a collection of very short essays, running from half a page to two or three pages each, this volume covers a range of topics and moments in football that have significance to the author. Not every side or famous figure or aspect of the world's favorite sport is presented, but every essay presents something interesting. I have had previous editions and re-read it before every world cup, having read it perhaps five or six times now. And I still enjoy it each time.Some of his wriitng is exaggerated--the author is, after all, a poet--but his pure passion for the sport and its magic moments, and greatest players, shines through in every essay. I think any reader can enjoy this book, even someone with little former exporsure ot football.However, some individuals, whose political ideas lean to the right, may be turned off by the author's obvious leftist slant on world affairs. My advice: get over it! Put it aside! This is one man's passionate, poetic history of the game he loves more than any other, and is well worth reading despite of, or perhaps even more so, because of the way he involves his own passions in the pages here.Highly recommended.Jeff Tucker.

A copy of my Goodreads review:A series of roughly one page vignettes on the history of soccer by your crazy, Uruguayan uncle, Eduardo Galeano. The emphasis is heavily on South America and the World Cup with some commentary on Europe (and occasionally Africa) when they are relevant to the World Cup or social commentary.In some ways this is more a chronicle of the change in the game as a reflection and result of the changing political, social, and economic landscape around the world. While I generally found the social commentary to be on point, when the author delved into more specific political areas I thought he was a bit naive. Perhaps that is just my Western bias and those beliefs are wide-spread in South America.Regardless, I would not call this a true history. It is much more an emotional portrait and commentary on the game as experienced by a fan. In this case the fan is moved to emotion by beautiful performances and to write by politics and social change. If you have a burning desire to experience the fandom and performance of a forgotten age before corporations owned the sport than this may be the book for you. If you want a fan's view of old world cups or South American soccer, this also may be for you. If you are interested in a more rigorous or broad history you may want to look into something like The Ball is Round instead.I really disliked the style at first but it kind of grew on me. Not for everyone, but it has a unique charm and value all of its own.

The cover reads "[a] beautiful ode to the beautiful game" by Grant Wahl from Sports Illustrated. It is lyrical and it has a cadence that is both filled with love and spewing venom at the state of things. Galeano uses this rhythm to touch on some heavy topics- Latin America and its state of neb-colonization, the effects of gloabalization, but not just on the affairs of people, things, finance, and ideas, but more pointedly on the Beautiful Game. All the while well informed sources in Miami were announcing the imminent fall of Fidel Castro, it was only a matter of hours according to Galeano.The two things that I was really disappointed about with this book was 1) the price; and 2) the amount of pages. The book has 297 pages when it could be printed in 150 pages maximum. It contains pages that have one paragraph with a image from Word 97 pasted randomly on its margins or center. This makes the book fairly childish, I had this guilty feel that i was in middle school and sneaking into my bed with a headlight to read it late into the night. Also, because of the wasted pages and the font size, charging 10 bucks or more for this book is unconscionable.

This is a wonderful book, really just a series of vignettes, all varying in readability; some breathtaking, some mundane. Geleano has a clear passion for the beautiful game, and this comes through in certain lyrical passages. My personal favorite –the one that stands out most in my memory – is the vignette about referees. Furthermore, Geleano communicates a not so subtle political viewpoint in each and every preface to his description of the world cups (He covers all of them until 2010) which turn out to be (the descriptions) quite snarky and entertaining. This book has gotten a place on my top shelf for its attempt to put into words what we all feel when we watch this game while rooting for club or country, and also because he doesn't shy away from taking some justified jabs at some pretty large organizations (looking at you, FIFA) along the way.

I love this book. I've just gone off on a toot with football books after having read Franklin Foer's pretty good recent book, How Soccer Explains the World. Like Foer, I'm a norteno, relatively new to the beautiful game. I latched on to the Clockwork Orange during the 1974 World Cup because I couldn't have the experience of a home team to go nuts about. But I did get the point of the beautiful game. I played a little, gawked at the Cosmos, etc. Well Galeano has it all. Better than Foer, he is borne to the lunacy of football while at the same time being able to express what it's about with elegant language and insight. Read this book when you can't watch a gme on TV. Get ready for a trip with this book. Read it for insight into the craziness of your friends. Know the joy of the wonderful game with penetrating intelligence about its future. Bravissimo!

If you are an aficionado of fútbol then this book will reveal to you the many unique and unknown facts, history and minutiae that rarely make the headlines of this popular sport.

This is a football book with a difference, written by one of Uruguay’s great authors. Galeano was a fanatical soccer fan and delivers here an outstanding exploration of the game. He achieves this through concise description spread across more than 200 short chapters, covering great players, matches and events. In these little cameos he never leaves the simple beauty of the game, but also leads the reader to think just a little more broadly, to put football as part of life, drawing out human experiences in the way a great no.10 might draw and then open a seemingly sealed defence.Given his origins, the book has an understandable Latin American slant and on occasion there are surely some errors (I don’t think Greaves missed the 1966 World Cup final as a cause of jaundice). In addition, the sometimes clumsy football descriptions suggest translation from the Spanish was not done by someone who knows football. Notwithstanding these small caveats if you are looking for a different way to view football then the book is an outstanding read. Galeano describes himself as a “beggar for good soccer” travelling to stadiums and pleading “A pretty move, for the love of God”. Galeano’s book encourages us to look for what he saw. It is worth the search.

It's poetry and history all in one. It's an easy read, in that no chapter is longer than three pages, and each word is weighted for the maximum effect. The book takes you the reader, from the game as how the English designed it, to how the Brazilians turned it from rote and rules to sheer poetry. I do like the fact that the book doesn't shy away from the shadows of corruption that runs through the game. It's a book that can be savoured in bites, or swallowed in its entirety.

Funny and well aimed short pieces on every aspect of the game, the players and what else was happening during football's most memorable moments.

Honestly this a great book I read in spanish but I learning English so I have to read in english too

A very interesting / enjoyable read