Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina - Hardcover

Wilson, Jonathan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1409144437 ISBN 13: 9781409144434

Publisher: Orion, 2016

Synopsis

The definitive history of Argentinian football from the award-winning author of Inverting the Pyramid

Diego Maradona, Gabriel Batistuta, Juan Román Riquelme, Sergio Agüero, Lionel Messi ... Argentina is responsible for some of the greatest footballers on the planet. Their rich, volatile history is made up of both the sublime and the ruthlessly pragmatic.

Argentina is a nation obsessed with football, and Jonathan Wilson, having lived there on and off during the last decade, is ideally placed to chart the five phases of Argentinian football: 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 ludicrous (albeit underachieving) creative talent of recent times.

More than any other nation Argentina lives and breathes football, its theories and myths. The subject is fiercely debated on street corners and in cafes. It has even preoccupied the country's greatest writers and philosophers.

Angels with Dirty Faces is the definitive history of a great footballing nation and its many paradoxes.

About this title

Review

'Wilson, as you would expect from the author of several important books on football history and tactics, goes far deeper than the stereotype ... fine-grained and often original research . . . as a writer who knows and appreciates Argentina, he is prepared to take on the more demanding task of telling the story in parallel with that of the country's turbulent political and social evolution . . . densely detailed but absorbing book' (Richard Williams GUARDIAN)

'Ambitious . . . [Wilson] has a fine eye for detail and a solid grasp of the big picture. He writes confidently about the sport, including tactics and strategies, but also about social and political questions . . . A sprawling, vibrant book about soccer in Argentina, a country where the sport is every bit as important and reflective of the society as it is anywhere in the world' (KIRKUS REVIEWS)

'From Alfredo Di Stefano to Lionel Messi, Argentine football get the Jonathan Wilson treatment in this exhaustive, illuminating history. HBO could make this into a series' (SPORT)

'Jonathan Wilson's INVERTING THE PYRAMID is easily the best game about soccer I've ever read, a
treatise on tactics that's worth a hundred dismal 'autobiographies'. Now Wilson has turned his considerable powers to one country and its obsession with the game: ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. It's a history of Argentina as reflected in the sport, and how life in Argentina has been reflected in the sport . . . This is the kind of book you don't see too often, an attempt to use a broad canvas and to include detail far beyond team sheets and scorelines . . . Conceiving of and writing a book like this is an achievement in and of itself'

(Michael Moynihan IRISH EXAMINER)

'Wilson is one of soccer's most respected historians and anoraks and here he delivers the definitive history of the beautiful game in Argentina' (Mark Keane IRISH DAILY MAIL)

'Wilson is a cerebral and knowledgeable sports journalist . . . and what he gives us in ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES is not just a history of the game in Argentina, but also an exhaustive account of all the cultural, social and political context in which moments such as the country's World Cup victories in 1978 and 1986 took place ... the extraordinary attention to detail will reward the dedicated reader as he serves up reams of entertaining titbits, involving one-handed strikers, buried chickens and plenty more, alongside serious consideration of the junta's reign of terror and other instances of Argentine discord' (CATHOLIC HERALD)

'Jonathan Wilson's enthralling and often disturbing history of Argentinian football . . . Wilson, one of the best of a new generation of football writers eager to to emphasise the bigger picture, untangles the social, economic and political narratives . . . He offers a nuanced examination of the extraordinary talents of Maradona and Lionel Messi, "the all-time great who never played at home". He deconstructs the Anglocentric interpretations of both 1966 and 1986 . . . Wilson's vignettes of former legends are well observed . . . The author is at his best when he is dissecting Argentinian football's idealised, aesthetically pleasing past, the psychodrama of its modern game, and its chequered football history' (Anthony Clavane NEW STATESMAN)

Immensely readable and wonderfully researched history of a nation and its long-term love for the beautiful game . . . after reading this excellent history, you'll be convinced that it won't be long before they add to their two World Cup titles (THE PINK)

The definitive history of Argentinian football (Barry Glendenning THE GUARDIAN)

'Epic in sweep ... a history of Argentinian football that is also a truly magnificent history of that country ... an unfailingly fascinating read' (Tom Holland EVENING STANDARD Books of the Year 2016)

Book Description

The definitive history of Argentinian football from the award-winning author of Inverting the Pyramid

Edition details

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1409144437
• ISBN 13: 9781409144434
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 576