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Product Description
Book Description
When the United States reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 2002, American soccer fans had good reason to celebrate. For the past hundred years they had been more used to humiliating failures from the national team, the repeated collapse of starry-eyed plans for a nationwide league and the contempt of mainstream sports devotees, who derided soccer as dull, tame and un-American – a game for ‘commie pansies’. Yet the neglected story of American soccer’s long struggle is a rich and surprising one. David Wangerin traces its path from the brief promise of the 1920s, through the euphoric highs and extravagant follies of the NASL, to today’s hard-won acceptance.
About the Author
David Wangerin has been a contributor to the independent football magazine When Saturday Comes since 1988, a year after he came to England to help Aston Villa win promotion from the Second Division, and two years after coaching his high school’s soccer team to a debut season of unbroken defeats. He now lives in Scotland, where he has developed an affection for Raith Rovers.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Dave Wangerin's book gives a great deal of history of the development of the game of soccer in the United States. It is valuable for not only giving comprehensive accounts of many of the earlier professional and semi-pro leagues from the early part of the 20th century, but also carries this forward with a comprehensive overview of the North American Soccer League (including its heyday with Pele, Beckenbauer, etc.) right through to the development of Major League Soccer and the U. S. National teams' great success in the early 21st century. The book also explores many of the reasons soccer has struggled to gain a foothold in the United States with some valuable insights. He also covers the National Team experience in Olympic competition, and a number of the more obscure leagues which have come and gone over the past century. This is a valuable book which not only covers the major areas of US soccer history in a comprehensive manner, but fills in many gaps in the historical record.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm a fan of sports in America - and a fan of history. Wangerin's book does a superb job marrying these two elements. I was aware of precious little regarding the long and sputtering history of soccer in America. As a father of 3 boys fully engaged in the present American youth soccer boom, I now have historical context thanks to this book. The research done by the author is remarkable and the writing is clear, sharp, and occasionally witty. Very well done!
Format:Paperback
Like many others, I probably turned to this book for some sort of explanation when David Beckham first signed for LA Galaxy. Proper football? In America? But surely they don't know how to play?
Wrong. Football (no, not soccer - I'm British) is often about the underdog, and the sport itself has been (and still is) very much an underdog in a country where the Superbowl rules supreme. That makes Wangerin's history of the game's struggles all the more readable, from the giant-killing game of 1950 through the misplaced glitz of the NY Cosmos and beyond, to the team that still punches more than its weight today. There's a lot of political wrangling involved, and an awful amount of acronyms (AFA, APSL, MSL, ASL, ESL, NASL....) to keep track of, but Wangerin focuses on individuals as much as possible, and the sheer number of European players who have played in the US leagues is quite staggering. It's not just about Pele.
Highly recommended.
Wrong. Football (no, not soccer - I'm British) is often about the underdog, and the sport itself has been (and still is) very much an underdog in a country where the Superbowl rules supreme. That makes Wangerin's history of the game's struggles all the more readable, from the giant-killing game of 1950 through the misplaced glitz of the NY Cosmos and beyond, to the team that still punches more than its weight today. There's a lot of political wrangling involved, and an awful amount of acronyms (AFA, APSL, MSL, ASL, ESL, NASL....) to keep track of, but Wangerin focuses on individuals as much as possible, and the sheer number of European players who have played in the US leagues is quite staggering. It's not just about Pele.
Highly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
CORRECTING MY IGNORANCE
Until I had read David's book, I had been totally unaware of the fact that the USA had a long history of non-padded mania football. Read more
Published on 6 April 2007 by B. E. Judson
you can hardly blame someone for not liking something
For someone who grew up in Philadelphia in the 60's and 70's and became interested in football (soccer) because we couldn't get tickets to the NFL or NHL, this book was strangely... Read more
Published on 15 Aug 2006 by John Kreeger
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