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Summary: author...
Review: I lost ALL respect for the author in the end of this book. What a fool.
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Summary: Soccer, drugs and death.
Review: The ending of this book says it all!! As an avid tifosi of cycling I can feel the pain and distrust that is evident throughout McGinniss' work. How can a fan be a fan if the sport is garnered by forces outside the field of play? Drugs, money, sex and death. Great story, but also a very disturbing trend in sports in the late 20th Century. Although the feelings that McGinniss presents are real and true for all tifosi, it seems that he has taken himself into the game a bit too far. Instead of being an objective observer, he becomes a participant in the whole sorid affair. It makes one wonder, if he even realizes this while writing the book. The book itself is first rate. A must read, but a bit depressing when viewed from the eyes of the author AFTER the fact. It just seems that something is missing from making it a great novel. A good story with a surprise ending BUT not a big surprise.
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Summary: a Great Story
Review: This book affected me more than any other book I have ever read has. To start with, I consider myself a true soccer fan as I have been to games in Europe and support a team die-heartedly. I am very judgemental on soccer books (the biography on Ronaldo was below my standards and so was "Fever Pitch"). I picked up this book after having had it recommended by Amazon.com (I had just finished "Hand of God" and was looking for another book on soccer). I wasn't able to put the book down. From Joe's first story of riding an Italian train to the final scene, I was captivated at this different "love of soccer" that the Italians seem to possess. I finished the book at about 1:30am because I could not put it down. When I finished, I just laid wide-awake in bed, not believing what had just happened. I wasn't able to get back to sleep for some time later. More than anything, this book tells what it is like to love a team so much (something a true soccer fan knows), while being involved in a totally different culture (and to try to accept the culture for what it is) and develop relationships with people from the culture, even though you have different attitudes and beliefs. Two totally different ways of life emerge due to a "minor league" (Calcio Italiano - Serie B) soccer team. Well worth the read!
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Summary: A book about Joe McGinness
Review: Contrary to my original expectations, this is not a book about a year in the life of an Italian soccer team. It is, instead, a year in the life of an American author spending a year with an Italian soccer team. While most journalists prefer to sit quietly in the corner and let the story unfold, Joe McGinness thrusts himself into the heart of the story, advising players, second-guessing coaches and attacking the team's management by nailing vicious diatribes against them to the team office door. I marveled that one of his previous books was suggested as an example of quality investigative reporting when I was in journalism school. It surprises me that, while he loses all objectivity in his coverage of the Castel Di Sangro story, he manages to maintain it when viewing himself. He had no problem admitting that he acted like a jerk at times. As is often the case, though, admitting something and correcting it are often two different things. I enjoyed the book once I realized that its main focus was McGinness himself. His almost rabid obsession with the game, his naivete (especially coming from someone who wrote a book about Nixon), and his passionate love for the team, made for an very interesting story, especially with its surprising ending. There is still one thing I don't understand, though. How can he consider a game in which a team can play for over six hours without scoring a point exciting?
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Summary: fantastic book! get over it people...
Review: this is a brilliant story! i devoured the book in under 24 hours. i'll be sending my copy to everyone i know who loves to read, whether they be soccer fans or not (not being an absolute certainty as i live in america). i'm a bit surprised by the general attitude of dislike of the story in most reviews due solely to the fact that they didn't approve of the author's behavior. sure he was an a** at times (okay, a lot of the time) but how that detracts from the story i'm not clear on. it seems an honest enough portrayal of his actions and feelings about a sport, a team, a town and its people. i felt it took courage to fess up after the fact that he HAD behaved poorly, merely by writing it as he remembered it... i also think that some of the "true" (read: european) football fans are a bit harsh in their reactions to the book. like joe, i'm a recent yank convert to the game and have experienced his rush at uncovering the various rules, cultural subtleties, heroes and stats that make up the game in all its complexity. and as such i think the book was written from that "naive" viewpoint and even more specifically, was probably written to an american audience completely oblivious to this fantastic sport. if you can forgive the author his factual transgressions (yes, we know it's really "injury time" and not "overtime") and accept him as a character in the book at face-value, i think you're in for what may be one of the most enjoyable reads of this or any other year...
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Summary: Loved It, Hated Him
Review: I've rarely liked a book so much while feeling such distaste for the author. McGinniss, a great writer from the old "Going To Extremes" days, sure can write, but his gall, ego, and thickheadedness almost overshadow his story. It's odd, because he keeps saying how much he loves Italians while showing the utmost contempt for everyone conncected with what he views as "his" team. He's always been condescending, but now he seems to have lost all perspective. Still, his self-righteous egomania does spur the story along as much as does the rags-top-riches tales of the soccer team. It's a great book by a guy who, by the end of the book, still hasn't understood how wrong and rude he is.
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Summary: Calcio: si, Joe: no
Review: I'm just back from Italy and this book proved to be a fun companion. The combination of my love of football and the extraordinary story of little Castel di Sangro's rise to Serie B made for an enjoyable read in the land of il calcio. Alas, while the true story was alternately amazing, funny, and tragic, the author's accounts of his own boorish behavior detracted from the overall enjoyment. As many other reviewers have stated here, McGinniss showed an unbelievable insensitivity to Castel's manager in questioning his tactics (this from an admitted neophyte in the sport) and to the players who took him into their confidence only to have him reveal far more than I'm sure they thought he ever would. I'm not defending the behavior McGinniss reported on in the shocking last chapter, but the way he handled the situation made him appear to be just another Ugly American to a group that considered him an adopted mate. I'm only surprised that Jaconi (the manager) only cursed McGinniss out. I was waiting for him to deck him. By the way, I checked it out and found that Castel di Sangro currently resides in Serie C1 and barely avoided the relegation playoffs this past season. I don't know what year they were relegated from Serie B, but I wonder if they'll ever again visit the heady climes. (Isn't the very idea of promotion and relegation terrific? What pressures as the season winds down!) So, I guess I'd say read the book for its remarkable story and try to get by the author's love affair with his tactical brilliance.
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Summary: An entertaining story by an arrogant author
Review: Mr McGinness tells a lively, entertaining and funny story and tells it very well. Along the way the reader learns alot about the Italian people in general and the game they love in particular (soccer/calcio). Unfortunately the author's arrogance (personal and cultural) gets in the way in the opening pages as he arrives in Italy without competence in the language. Then it gets worse as he assumes he has become an expert in calcio and finally evolves into a pre-adolescent debacle of petulance when he finds his heroes have feet of clay. He would have been well-served even by a small amount of humility and introspection. That said, I read the book in two days and thouroughly enjoyed about 80% of it.
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Summary: Decent football story, but author gets too crazy.
Review: And I don't mean crazy with his writing style. The story begins as ostensibly a journalistic one. American soccer fan Mcginniss goes to Italy to follow a Cinderella calcio story but it becomes all too clear that he thinks from the beginnning that he and his soccer "expertise" should take center stage in the story. He actually starts his coverage of the team assuming he's going to be co-planning the team's tactics with the coach. By the end, he pretty much goes off the deep end and, I fear, confirming the stereotype of "ugly American" in one more place abroad. Still, if you like soccer (football, calcio) it's a good story. It's also a pretty good story about Italian society, the good, the bad and the ugly. So, overall, not bad.
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Summary: 4 stars for the book, 0 stars for Joe
Review: Joe gives us a pretty good book, especially if you are ignorant of soccer. I was. I am, but a little less. I did know a little about Italy having lived in Naples a few months. That's why I read the book. I didn't expect to finish it when I started, but I did. I did because Joe made the players come alive, he made the situation come alive, he provided tension for the soccer games as well as the situation. In that way he made it a pretty good read. But I was embarrassed for the USA. I feel I need to apologize to my Italian friends for his behavior. Get this! The man comes to Italy with almost no knowledge of soccer, believes himself to become such an expert in no time that he gives advice to the coach, and then wonders that the coach doesn't cotton to that. But it gets worse. Joe wants to sit in judgement on another country, on a sport in another country, on the people of another country. Joe, Joe, Joe, did you ever hear of the Ugly American? A fly on the wall. That was your job. Report. Be funny, but don't denigrate and don't judge and don't try to tell the coach what to do. Joe wrote the book. Read it in spite of Joe. Do like I did and buy it at a fire sale for a buck. Enjoy and feel embarrassed at the same time.
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