Ebook Overview: Joe Posnanski scores with poignant, informative, hilarious ‘Why We Love Soccer’
Joe Posnanski is getting fairly good at this complete sports activities countdown factor.
The award-winning sportswriter’s earlier books have profiled important ballplayers (“The Baseball 100”) and ticked off 50 of the largest events within the historical past of our nationwide pastime (“Why We Love Baseball.”)
Posnanski is again with a brand new sport and complete. In “Why We Love Soccer: A Historical past in 100 Moments,” the previous Sports activities Illustrated scribe pens a completely pleasing look again on the gamers and performs which have come to outline America’s hottest sport.
Positive, one may argue with what was included and what was not, the order, and so on. However on the finish of the day, the guide is a love letter to soccer — a poignant, informative and at occasions hilarious take a look at what makes the gridiron recreation such part of the nationwide material.
“It takes us followers to the mountaintop, and it tears our hearts out,” Posnanski writes. “It lifts us and crushes us, thrills us and revolts us, leaves us empty and leaves us wanting and leaves us breathless.”
There are no-brainers in there — the 1972 “Immaculate Reception” that lifted the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Oakland Raiders to their first-ever playoff victory, the “Kick-Six” missed subject aim return for Auburn that surprised Alabama within the 2013 Iron Bowl and Bart Starr’s title-winning quarterback keeper through the 1967 NFL Championship “Ice Bowl” recreation in opposition to Dallas at Lambeau Subject — however “Why We Love Soccer” is at its finest when it explores the off-the-beaten-path moments within the recreation’s lengthy historical past.
And the intersection of soccer and popular culture. The passage on former Notre Dame coach Dan Devine’s portrayal within the underdog feel-good movie “Rudy” alone is likely to be definitely worth the guide’s buy worth.
For soccer followers like this reviewer, the guide is an absolute must-read. Nevertheless it needs to be accessible to the football-averse, too, with its good writing and analysis that finds gems and views that convey the sport and its characters to life. Readers will discover themselves laughing out loud at occasions.
“Soccer issues as a result of, at its finest, the sport illustrates life at its most exuberant and most passionate and most emotionally heightened,” Posnanski writes.
“Why We Love Soccer” proves that assertion by reminding us all what makes it the No. 1 sport within the land.
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