Soccer in Sun and Shadow by Eduardo Galeano

Blue was her raiment as the unclouded heaven, but her eyes were grey as the starlit evening her mantle was sewn with golden flowers, but her hair was dark as the shadows of twilight. Then all memory of his pain departed from him, and he fell into an enchantment for Lúthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar. “wandering in the summer in the woods of Neldoreth came upon Lúthien, daughter of Thingol and Melian, at a time of evening under moonrise, as she danced upon the unfading grass in the glades beside Esgalduin. ― Eduardo Galeano, quote from Soccer in Sun and Shadow King Fahd Stadium in Saudi Arabia has marble and gold boxes and carpeted stands, but it has no memory or much of anything to say.” The final match of the 1974 World Cup, won by Germany, is played day after day and night after night at Munich’s Olympic Stadium. In Milan, the ghosts of Giuseppe Meazza scores goals that shake the stadium bearing his name. The concrete terraces of Camp Nou in Barcelona speak Catalan, and the stands of San Mamés in Bilbao talk in Basque. From the depths of Azteca Stadium, you can hear the ceremonial chants of the ancient Mexican ball game. At Bombonera in Buenos Aires, drums boom from half a century ago. Maracanã is still crying over Brazil’s 1950 World Cup defeat. Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium sighs with nostalgia for the glory days of Uruguayan soccer. There is nothing less mute than stands bereft of spectators.Īt Wembley, shouts from the 1966 World Cup, which England won, still resound, and if you listen very closely you can hear groans from 1953 when England fell to the Hungarians. There is nothing less empty than an empty stadium. Stand in the middle of the field and listen.

No one who has ever played in or cheered on a soccer side will want to miss this book.Have you ever entered an empty stadium? Try it. Published in the run-up to the 1998 World Cup, this is the glory of soccer in all its international hues, with its multilingual cries of despair, victory and passion. Here is a story of love and death: of the suicide of Abdon Porte, who shot himself in the center circle of the National Stadium of the Argentine manager who wouldn't let his team eat chicken because it would bring bad luck of the Russian goalkeeper who prepared his min and soothed his nerves with a cigarette and a dash of vodka before each game. Eduardo Galeano seeks out the mystical and the bewitched, the romance and the emotional destitution experienced by players and fans the world round. From the origins of soccer to the World Cup played in the US in 1994, one of Latin America's most fluent and widely read commentators captures the enduring appeal of the world's greatest game. The passion and the glory of the beautiful game, captured on the eve of the World Cup.

Soccer in Sun and Shadow by Eduardo Galeano