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Title: The Miracle of Castel di Sangro : A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy by Joe McGinniss ISBN: 0-7679-0599-7 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 06 June, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.01 (89 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Exciting story of a small Italian football team
Comment: Joe McGinniss wrote this account of the fortunes of the tiny Castel di Sangro football team in the 1996/97 season in Italy's Serie B. This may sound quite normal to you but, first consider that the town of Castel di Sangro has a tiny population of just 5,000 people and it's based in the poorest region of Italy, Abruzzo. The fact that they managed to get into Serie B is astonishing.
The book is seen through the eyes of the author who is invited into the very centre of the team's activities; he talks, eats and spends time with all the players, the manager, directors and owners of the club. Sometimes there is strong friction between the author and the club's officials, but this makes the book all the more compelling!
Overall, a superb book which captures the essence of football in Italy very well. Be prepared for many twists and turns in the season, not just on the field of play!
Rating: 4
Summary: A mostly wild ride
Comment: This is a captivating, colorful trip through small-town second-division Italian soccer, with more than the requisite amount of lunacy you might expect from soccer players, second divisions, small towns and Italians in general. It is insightful into the game -- what makes it the source of such passion, why the Italians play so defensively, what it means to ascend the ranks, etc. It is also replete with a cast of characters that would make for fine fiction if it weren't true. The only character I didn't like is the author, who increasingly asserts himself into the narrative and (by his own admission) acts pretty stupid. He constantly oversteps his privilege as the team's guest for the season by berating the coach about strategy, and he chastises the players for... well, you'll see at the end, but anyway he's incredibly self-righteous for someone who knows nothing about the sport and makes little effort to consider why the players (or the coach) do the things they do. He breezily chalks his behavior up to what Il Calcio does to you, and maybe it's true, but it's still annoying. So, read the book, skim the parts where he focuses on his own increasingly embarassing behavior, and enjoy the rest.
Rating: 5
Summary: "The Fanatic is a fan in a madhouse"- Eduardo Galeano
Comment: Reviewer: tom cieszinski from United States
The above quote is found on page 345 of this book and a renowned author in his own right, of various books, including one on football-soccer; "football in sun and shadow; an emotional history of the World Cup." This phrase, if I had to pick one, out of this multi-dimensional book would best summarise this outstanding work by Joe McGinnis.
Outstanding, I do not believe, I will reiterate what other reviewers have excellently recanted about this book; I would say, what I believe McGinnis brings to his writing, are numerous literary references as the above and an abundant use of the Italian language make this an excellent read.
Agreeing with one reviewer, half way through the book, it unravels some, some I say, but then, comes back for an excellent finish.
Some opine, Joe McGinnis is the "bulldozer" in this work, that he contains shade of being an "ugly American", to me however, when all is said and done & it is forgivable; understand me there please, but he falls short, of the players, he supposedly "cares" so much about, these hapless heroes, he presents in such a rich context, in their achievements, most to never be recognized in the very large system of Italian soccer, Calcio. He falls short, he burns bridges, he does not become a part of the system, but at what cost?
I would characterise Mr. McGinnis as being "pushy", similar to the second guessings of a "Monday morning quarterback" or as being confrontational and abrasive at times but by golly; who isn't or has not been at some periods of time in their life? Why, Mr. McGinnis faults the system at some points of this book, but if he were doing this in most countries, namely the US and giving advice to a coach, in this case, Osvaldo Jaconi; he might well run into a "my way or the highway" mentality (can one picture, an author of a book, giving advice to an American sports coach in the locker room, with so much frequency? I doubt it). Absolutely, correct, is the reviewer who opines he should have handled the ending differently and without giving it away as well; we have something, that is on a minor scale, similar to the Shoeless Joe Jackson Blacksox scandal of Baseball. The thing is, is that in this book, "corruption" plays a rather minor part of the book as a whole. In fact and very humorously, McGinnis often places his opinions on Coach Jaconi on how a game should be played or who should play in the game. Though he gets away with this, as far as the ownership and the office management of the team, Castel Di Sangro goes, I am surprised, McGinnis gets away with many of the things he does; read that to say; the ownership has shades seemingly of the Sicilian scenes from Godfather II; not that extreme, I mind you, but the author does seem to propose this thesis. In fact, we would be led to believe, from what McGinnis writes, that the whole of Italy, to some extent, has "organised crime" as a part of the system, though it is not as pronounced as that which we see in Sicily.
And I do believe, for the minor role, of speaking about the so-called "corruption" in this book, Mr. McGinnis quotes Eduardo Galeano's writings on soccer. Has McGinnis seen how, even in the World Cup, at times, one can see, games, in these seemingly most important of all soccer games, absolute sham calls? We saw such in the last World Cup, probably prime examples, but these are by no means, the only examples.
McGinnis takes us to places, we previously have not been; so I five star it. Once in one of these overseas countries, I stayed in a hotel, where a visiting team was doing as well. I felt for the players, I can relate to the book; in that the team I personally had contact with was by no means in the upper echelon of the league.
All of that I say, is well and good, but this book, shines, on it's writing of the games, the season and story line,
"...With one voice, the crowd was chanting, "Ca-Stell-O! Ca-Stell-O!" (page 347).
I can pass on some of the extemporary info but I take the good with the bad. I'm looking for a sequel; which I doubt can ever be; maybe something similar should be written by the author.
Oh, and lastly, I have the hard-cover edition of this book, there seems to be about 16 pages of photos, vs. what someone mentioned, possibly reading a paperback edition, said his book did not have the photographs. I'd find it difficult to fathom this book without the accompanying pictures, the first being of the town of Castel di Sangro; very picturesque; a team photo; photos of virtually every major character in the book, including il Signore Rezza and including pictures of the team in their "Soviet Jeans" uniforms.
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Title: A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character, and...Goals! by Tim Parks ISBN: 1559706287 Publisher: Arcade Books Pub. Date: 10 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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