Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

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And for this one, it begins with Watson Hutton circa 1880, and continues on Motti then Maradona then Messi. Wilson says ‘I wanted to include the theory and place the sport in its social, economic and political context, and I wanted to include the people, the players and coaches whose lives are so remarkable that they seem to have fallen from a magic-realist novel, but I didn’t want to stint on the football, on the games and the goals that actually make us watch in the first place, on the culture that provides the currency in which so much of Argentinian life is transacted. Like a rebellious kid making art in their room, the country battled football hooliganism, political maneuvering and a temperamental individuality seeped into its game plan to emerge with fragments of promise that didn’t always deliver.

Actually the most interesting stuff to me are the parts where sport and politics intersect — for example, the way how the right wing military junta attempted to use the national team to advance political propaganda and distract citizens from people the people they were disappearing. If you’re interested in history, the roots of the game and getting under the skin of one of the world’s foremost footballing nations then I’d have a go at this. He always picks a fight with the club he’s in, ends his career at each club with a catastrophic disagreement.This is an excellent book, which offers a potted social and political history of Argentina as well as of its football. It is in these final lines of the book that his authoritative and convincing argument concludes: ‘Football is another Argentinian dream that slipped away. Perhaps the defining theme of this book is that Argentina, invariably perceived as an El Dorado waiting to be discovered and exploited, has never lived up to that Utopian potential, thus engendering disillusionment and cynicism. But while this is primarily a history of football, so entwined are the political and socio-economic strands, so inextricably is football bound up with all public life, that this is also a book about Argentina’.

As Wilson pointed out, as at the time of the writing in 2016, “They’ve won two World Cups and lost in three finals; they’ve won fourteen Copa Américas (six more than Brazil). It is these stories which explain the ongoing fascination with the unique, flawed phenomenon that is Argentinian football, and it is these stories which will stay with me after reading this book. Though I’m sure there is nothing sinister in that regard and he is simply reflecting a northern European impression of the Latin look and demeanour which has been the subject of certain stereotype.It's a history of Argentina as reflected in the sport, and how life in Argentina has been reflected in the sport . I started reading this book four days after watching Argentina beat Brazil in the Copa America final at the iconic Maracana in Rio de Janeiro, ending a 28 year trophy drought as Messi finally captured his first international title.

Desde México, aunque dolorosamente nos hayan ganado en la fase de grupos, externo mi apoyo en la final a una Selección Argentina que encarna el siglo de tradición relatado en “Ángeles con Cara Sucia”. Football had been introduced to Argentina by British expatriates in the 19th century during a period when it was part of the informal empire; after the Anglos dominated the early years of the domestic league the 'criollisation' of the sport moved on apace, coinciding with mass immigration from Europe and the Middle East, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation plus the development of 'Argentinidad', a national identity centred at first on the figure of the gaucho but then on football. This was perhaps an even greater achievement than the 1986 victory, given the huge pressure (Menotti chain smoked throughout the whole of every match, famously). What’s great is that, the physical books ends in 2016, this one goes all the way to to 2021 with material I’d never heard before.Całe szczęście Jonathan Wilson okazał się w tym temacie profesorem, a jego aniołowie mogą posłużyć za podręcznik. For all his tactical acumen Bilardo owed so much to the genius of Diego Maradona, the ultimate example of the pibe, the urchin-like figure identified by Borocoto, the editor of the uniquely influential El Grafico, as the archetypal embodiment of Argentinian football and nationality. Even the supply of talent seemed to have dried up: the youth team won the FIFA Under-20 World Cup five times between 1995 and 2007 but had failed to translate this into success at senior level, with six major finals lost between 2004 and 2016.