The Three Most Beautiful Books about the Beautiful Game

By Sam Martin - June 19, 2010

“Writing about football is like dancing to architecture,” one might be inclined to say, slightly paraphrasing Elvis Costello. In other words: it’s tough. The “beautiful game” comes to life in the moment it is experienced, either in the stadium or in front of a screen, alone or with others. And while the seminal games live on in the collective memory of fan communities, cities, regions, and nations, ruthlessly dissected by an army of self-proclaimed pundits who squeeze the last ounces of magic out of football in their data-obsessed post-match analysis, football has always been more about the here and now – because, as we’ve seen so far in this World Cup, anything can happen. So it is not surprising that amidst the flood of football literature there are only a few books, in my eyes, that really capture the beauty of the game. Here are three of them.

• read more
• comments