The Country Of Football

Brazil has done much to shape football/soccer, but how has soccer shaped Brazil? Despite the political and social importance of the beautiful game to the country, the subject has hitherto received little attention. This book presents groundbreaking work by historians and researchers from Brazil, the United States, Britain and France, who examine the political significance, in the broadest sense, of the sport in which Brazil has long been a world leader. The authors consider questions such as the relationship between soccer, the workplace and working class culture; the formation of Brazilian national identity; race relations; political and social movements; and the impact of the sport on social mobility. Contributions to the book range in time from the late nineteenth century, when the British first introduced the sport to Brazil, to the present day, as the 'country of soccer' prepares itself to host the 2014 World Cup, painting a vivid picture of the many ways in which soccer exists and functions in Brazil, both on and off the pitch.

Soccer is the world’s most popular sport, and the Brazilian national team is beloved around the planet for its beautiful playing style, the jogo bonito. With the most successful national soccer team in the history of the World Cup, Brazil is the only country to have played in every competition and the winner of more championships than any other nation. Soccer is perceived, like carnival and samba, to be quintessentially Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian. Yet the practice and history of soccer are also synonymous with conflict and contradiction as Brazil continues its trajectory toward modernity and economic power. The ongoing debate over how Team Brazil should play and positively represent a nation of demanding supporters bears on many crucial facets of a country riven by racial and class tensions. The Country of Football is filled with engaging stories of star players and other key figures, as well as extraordinary research on local, national, and international soccer communities. Soccer fans, scholars, and readers who are interested in the history of sport will emerge with a greater understanding of the complex relationship between Brazilian soccer and the nation’s history.

"In time for Brazil's hosting of the 2014 World Cup, this book uses the stories of star players and other key figures (based on over 40 interviews) to create a contemporary history of Brazilian soccer from the 1950s to the present. It also explores race and class tensions in Brazil and shows how soccer is central to the country's dramatic trajectory toward modernity and economic power"--

"In time for Brazil's hosting of the 2014 World Cup, this book uses the stories of star players and other key figures (based on over 40 interviews) to create a contemporary history of Brazilian soccer from the 1950s to the present. It also explores race and class tensions in Brazil and shows how soccer is central to the country's dramatic trajectory toward modernity and economic power"--

"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.

A Social History of Indian Football covers the period 1850-2004. It considers soccer as a derivative sport, creatively and imaginatively adapted to suit modern Indian socio-cultural needs - designed to fulfil political imperatives and satisfy economic aspirations. The book is concerned with the appropriation, assimilation and subversion of sporting ideals in colonial and post-colonial India for nationalist needs. The book assesses the role of soccer in colonial Indian life, to delineate the inter-relationship between those who patronised, promoted, played and viewed the game, to analyse the impact of the colonial context on the games evolution and development and shed light on the diverse nature of trysts with the sport across the country. Throughout this book, soccer is the lens that illuminates India's colonial and post-colonial encounter. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Soccer and Society.