The Beautiful Game 1

While kicking a ball through the dusty streets of his Brazilian hometown, young Edson Arantes do Nascimento was given the nickname Pelé so casually that no one remembers its meaning. Today, the name is famous worldwide as belonging to history's greatest soccer player. Here, in Pelé's own words, is his incredible life story: his five goals in the last two games of the 1958 World Cup at the tender age of 17, his glory years with his Brazilian club FC Santos, his role in four World Cup tournaments, his comeback as a member of the storied New York Cosmos, and his lifelong role as goodwill ambassador for the world's favorite sport. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

See the world of football brought to life with illustrations and stunning infographics. The Beautiful Game is loaded with facts, stats, profiles on player personalities, bios, history, and much more to make the beautiful game leap out at you like you've never seen before. Whether it's uncovering the most goals scored in an international tournament, or comparing the left-foot of the world's best players, the intriguing, and often surprising, truths of soccer are completely at your disposal. Who has scored more penalty shots, Ronaldo or Messi? Which goalie has the safest hands? Who has received the most red cards? These striking and fun infographics put the game's most intriguing questions to the test. The perfect gift for avid football fans, whatever team they support!

"Beautifully researched and engagingly told, this book captures the bitter conflicts and surprising continuities that marked the emergence of a national style in Brazil as it tells the story of the men and women who, despite their many differences, together created 'the beautiful game.'"--Roger Kittleson, author of The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil "Compellingly shows how each segment of Brazilian society--players, club owners, and spectators, especially the usually neglected female fans--was touched by the sport that it eventually came to proudly embrace as its own."--Amy Chazkel, coeditor of The Rio de Janeiro Reader: History, Culture, Politics "Highlights the narrative power of soccer, showing how Brazilians--from elite sportsmen and nationalist intellectuals to common men and women--infused the sport with both personal and national importance."--Joshua Nadel, author of Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America Although the popular history of Brazilian football narrates a story of progress toward democracy and inclusion, it does not match the actual historical record. Instead, football can be understood as an invention of early twentieth century middle-class and wealthy Brazilians who called themselves "sportsmen" and nationalists, and used the sport as part of their larger campaigns to shape and reshape the nation. In this cross-cutting cultural history, Gregg Bocketti traces the origins of football in Brazil from its elitist, Eurocentric identity as "foot-ball" at the end of the nineteenth century to its subsequent mythologization as the specifically Brazilian "futebol," o jogo bonito (the beautiful game). Bocketti examines the popular depictions of the sport as having evolved from a white elite pastime to an integral part of Brazil's national identity known for its passion and creativity, and concludes that these mythologized narratives have obscured many of the complexities and the continuities of the history of football and of Brazil. Mining a rich trove of sources, including contemporary sports journalism, archives of Brazilian soccer clubs, and British ministry records, and looking in detail at soccer's effect on all parts of Brazilian society, Bocketti shows how important the sport is to an understanding of Brazilian nationalism and nation building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

“Beautifully researched and engagingly told, this book captures the bitter conflicts and surprising continuities that marked the emergence of a national style in Brazil as it tells the story of the men and women who, despite their many differences, together created ‘the beautiful game.’”—Roger Kittleson, author of The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil “Compellingly shows how each segment of Brazilian society—players, club owners, and spectators, especially the usually neglected female fans—was touched by the sport that it eventually came to proudly embrace as its own.”—Amy Chazkel, coeditor of The Rio de Janeiro Reader: History, Culture, Politics “Highlights the narrative power of soccer, showing how Brazilians—from elite sportsmen and nationalist intellectuals to common men and women—infused the sport with both personal and national importance.”—Joshua Nadel, author of Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America Although the popular history of Brazilian football narrates a story of progress toward democracy and inclusion, it does not match the actual historical record. Instead, football can be understood as an invention of early twentieth century middle-class and wealthy Brazilians who called themselves “sportsmen” and nationalists, and used the sport as part of their larger campaigns to shape and reshape the nation. In this cross-cutting cultural history, Gregg Bocketti traces the origins of football in Brazil from its elitist, Eurocentric identity as “foot-ball” at the end of the nineteenth century to its subsequent mythologization as the specifically Brazilian “futebol,” o jogo bonito (the beautiful game). Bocketti examines the popular depictions of the sport as having evolved from a white elite pastime to an integral part of Brazil’s national identity known for its passion and creativity, and concludes that these mythologized narratives have obscured many of the complexities and the continuities of the history of football and of Brazil. Mining a rich trove of sources, including contemporary sports journalism, archives of Brazilian soccer clubs, and British ministry records, and looking in detail at soccer’s effect on all parts of Brazilian society, Bocketti shows how important the sport is to an understanding of Brazilian nationalism and nation building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The world's most popular sport, soccer, has long been celebrated as “the beautiful game” for its artistry and aesthetic appeal. Picturing the Beautiful Game: A History of Soccer in Visual Culture and Art is the first collection to examine the rich visual culture of soccer, including the fine arts, design, and mass media. Covering a range of topics related to the game's imagery, this volume investigates the ways soccer has been promoted, commemorated, and contested in visual terms. Throughout various mediums and formats-including illustrated newspapers, modern posters, and contemporary artworks-soccer has come to represent issues relating to identity, politics, and globalization. As the contributors to this collection suggest, these representations of the game reflect society and soccer's place in our collective imagination. Perspectives from a range of fields including art history, sociology, sport history, and media studies enrich the volume, affording a multifaceted visual history of the beautiful game.

Songs from the musical set in Belfast between 1969 and 1972 during a time of conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. The story follows the friendships and relationships of a high-school-aged team of Irish soccer players, and explores how these relationships are affected by the violence surrounding them.

Cody and the Lions are playing great soccer, even if their team has only eleven players. But the arrival of an international company to build a factory on a nearby lake splits the team in two: Cody and his teammates who are worried the factory will pollute the lake vs. the players whose families will benefit from the jobs and opportunities the company will bring. Cody and his friends decide to organize a marathon soccer game to bring attention to the environmental impact of the factory in the hopes people will put pressure on the town council to vote against it being built. The marathon soccer game tests Cody to the limits of his strength. But it also tests his friendship, teamwork, courage, and faith that he can deal with the emotional effects as well as the physical effects of surviving cancer. Very much a book that can be read on its own, The Beautiful Game is a sequel to David Skuy's highly successful 2013 novel Striker.

In The Art of a Beautiful Game, Chris Ballard, the award-winning Sports Illustrated writer who has covered the NBA for the past decade, goes behind the scenes to examine basketball in ways that will surprise even die-hard fans. An inveterate hoops junkie who played some college ball, Ballard sits down with the NBA's most passionate, cerebral players to find out their tricks of the trade and to learn what drives them, taking readers away from the usual sports talk radio fodder and deep into the heart of the game. Ballard talks to Dwight Howard, a prolific shot-blocker, about the enervating feeling of meeting another man at the height of his leap; challenges Steve Kerr to a game of H-O-R-S-E to understand the mentality of a pure shooter; reveals the roots of Kobe Bryant's unmatched killer instinct; and spends time with LeBron James to better understand both his mental game and his seemingly unlimited physical skills. He tracks down renowned dunkers from Dominique to Shaq to explore the impact of the dunk on the modern game, shadows Shane Battier during his preparations to defend LeBron, takes lessons from a freethrow shooting guru who once hit 2,750 in a row, and attends an elite NBA training camp to feel the pain that turns a prospect into a pro. Packed with lively characters and basketball history, and grounded in superb writing and the reportage that is the hallmark of Sports Illustrated, The Art of a Beautiful Game is an often witty, always insightful look at the men like Steve Nash, Yao Ming, and Alonzo Mourning who devote themselves to this elegant and complicated sport. It ultimately provides basketball fans what they all want: an inside read on the game they love.