He appears in the Sao Paulo carnival for the samba school of Corinthians’ hardcore fans, wearing purple feathers. He visits three Brazilians playing for a club in a village of 1,000 people in the Faroe Islands.

Not only does he speak to everyone – the man who designed Brazil’s yellow-blue-white strip, the man who scored the winner against Brazil in the 1950 final, beauty queens, priests – but he also goes everywhere and does everything. But Bellos travels around Brazil as if it were Luxembourg. In dangerous countries like Brazil, there are foreign correspondents who never leave town, and barely even their neighbourhood, except to go to the airport for the flight home. What makes Futebol special is its legwork – Alex Bellos is a Stakhanovite. Yet nobody had tackled the ultimate football country since the American sociologist Janet Lever wrote the obscure but wonderful Soccer Madness in 1983. The format was familiar: by the time Futebol appeared, in 2002, we’d already enjoyed excellent books on football in one country by David Winner (Holland) and Phil Ball (Spain), with several others in the pipeline.

Whether you're a casual fan or a football obsessive, the fifty-two golden rules in this pocket-size guide will deepen your delight in the world's favourite sport.The Brazilian Way of Life – Alex Bellos, 2002 In this short, illustrated guide, its creators share fifty-two simple 'rules' for understanding and enjoying the beautiful game-both on and off the pitch.Ĭovering the key concepts, tactics and philosophies that are shaping the sport today, How to Watch Football reveals surprising new perspectives on familiar elements of gameplay, while highlighting lesser-known aspects of the industry and its history. It's about money and data, about geopolitics and architecture, and even about climate change.įootball is the most popular sport in the world, and Tifo Football is one of the world's most popular football channels. It's about the coach, the club owner, and the director of football, who are watching, scouting and scheming from the side-lines. It's about the ticking clock, and the bellowing fans, and their impact on player psychology. But it's also about the intense calculations and movements being made by the twenty-one other players on the pitch. Yes, football is about stars, goals and glory. 'Tifo have changed the game when it comes to football analysis' Elis James

Tor football book