Angels with dirty faces : how Argentinian soccer defined a nation and changed the game forever / Jonathan Wilson.

Author
Wilson, Jonathan, 1976- [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
  • New York : Nation Books, [2016]
  • ©2016
Description
xviii, 411 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks GV944.A7 W55 2016 Browse related items Request

    Details

    Subject(s)
    Summary note
    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.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (pages 386-400) and index.
    Contents
    • 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 ways
    • The little pigeon
    • The miracle of Huracán
    • The return of Perón
    • Of heroes and chickens
    • The age of the devils
    • Lorenzo and the Boca fulfillment
    • The first steps to glory
    • Glory in a time of terror
    • Part five: A new hope, 1978-1990
    • The nativity
    • The unlikeliest champions
    • The pride of the nation
    • The return of anti-fútbol
    • Maradana in Europe
    • Optimism and the Libertadores
    • His finest hour
    • Burying the chicken
    • The Neapolitan glory
    • Moral champions again
    • Part six: Debt and disillusionment, 1990-2002
    • The third way
    • Tabárez and the Boca revival
    • The fatal urine of Foxborough
    • The rise of Vélez and the River revival
    • The failure of neoliberalism
    • The dwindling of a genius
    • The lure of the past
    • Boca's age of glory
    • The crash
    • Part seven: Over the water, 2002-2015
    • The second coming
    • The ascent from the abyss
    • The growth of the legend
    • The list in the sock
    • The ecstasy of gold
    • The end of the affair
    • Messi and the Messiah
    • Distrust and short-termism
    • Home discomforts
    • The little witch, the Pope, and the gleeful chicken
    • The ongoing drought
    • The eternal laurels.
    ISBN
    • 9781568585512 ((paperback))
    • 1568585519 ((paperback))
    LCCN
    2016009501
    OCLC
    944956374
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