Got it for Christmas. It follows a soccer fan in the US (circa 1994-1996) who's attention was captured by a calcio team from Castel di Sangro, Italy. The fan went to Italy to write about and research this team who started out at the lowest of all levels, went through the regional leagues (they're all listed in the book), finally winning promotion off a penalty kick shootout into Serie B. What's amazing, they won promotion from the fifth division (regional leagues), and kept winning promotion with essentially the same amount of people all the way up into Serie B. This book follows the season in Serie B. Of course, the whole town and team were fascinated by an American who followed their calcio. After all, in the early-mid 90's, an avid American supporter in Europe was somewhat rare. Anyone else read it?
A lot of BS users have read it, and we did have a couple of threads on it back in the day. It's a good read, quite funny, but I got a little mad at the author for getting indignant at the end of the book. Personally, I could not walk into a country, have people accept me (in some cases literally) into their homes/town, and then go off on their way of life, even if it was "wrong" in my view. But he is not me, so there. Other than that, great book, and I have made my friends read it.
Very good book, though of course it's not uncommon for people to get miffed at the author. Personally, I thought most of that stuff was pretty funny. I mean, who else but an American would watch a sport for two years and suddenly think he can give tactical advice to a professional coach? And I think that McGuinness was aware of the joke -- he's a very good writer, so I'm sure he knew how people were going to react to his depiction of himself. I don't want to tip off the ending of the book either (there's no "R" in the title of this thread, as you all noticed ), but my take on it is a bit different than Jamison's: the author's response to the events at the end of the book were predictable, given what you saw of the author up to that point. While they seem to be a given of the Italian game, that doesn't mean that everyone (including lots of Italians) are going to be happy with that state of affairs.
I can't really add anything to the two previous posts other than to say that I'm glad I read it, and would recommend it to others. I think I was drawn to it because I tend to like books that cover athletics at a lower level---lower division soccer & minor league baseball.
It was pretty entertaining, not great. I've never discussed it with anyone who ever read it, and don't want to give away the ending, but did any lawsuits result from it? The conversations he quotes at the end (and its hard to discuss without giving away the ending) sounded extremely phony to me. I'd be very surprised if no one sued for libel. If they didn't, well, then I guess the allgations may have been true.
please, don't give away the ending. i intended this thread to be more of a review/talkabout for those people thinking about buying/reading or whatever....something like that... and i've just had so much ************ to do, it's just sitting around now. but it's cool to know that's it's possible to start in the factory league one year and go up and eventually play teams that played the likes of AC Milan and Juventus only a few months before. the scene with the guy wanting to go to the crappy hotel, cause it was near the stadium was odd. why would anyone want a crappy hotel? (But i snuck ahead and found out he gets a key). In the first few pages, he mentions driving, train, flying across the country to catch a game and going back across the next day. (yeah, that kind of stuff is done here, but it seems more insane over there for some reason). Any movies of this book?
Not to hijack the thread or anything, but you might like a book (out of print, I presume) called "The Waterloo Diamonds" by a guy named Panac or Panec (something like that). It covers one year (the last one, I think) in the history of the Waterloo franchise of the midwest league. Great stuff. The team moved to Springfield IL for a year, and is now the Lansing LugNuts. Back to soccer, there's Des McKeown's "Don't Give Up the Day Job," a diary of a season in the life of a part-timer player in the Scottish 2nd Division (he would've been playing for Stenhousmuir this year, but he got his leg broken in a pre-season friendly). Outstanding book, and I think you can get it from Amazon.com now. Back to Miracle: Knave's right. I don't know whether it was Rongen, or just a bad telephone connection, but that is one damn funny moment in the book. Also, for MLS fans: Joe Addo has a cameo in "Miracle" as well.
i thought it was pretty entertaining read. but i too thought the authour was kind of an ass, and he made some gross technical errors, i think he said the 12 yrd box instead of 18 and several other things.
I read an interview with McGinnis http://www.sportsjones.com/sj/93.shtml I have to check out that other book, but I will not use Amazon (see my thread on their crappy service)
I just started reading A Season with Verona by Tim Parks and I really like it. It is similar to MOCDS, but written by an author with less naivete towards football and Italy (though, that was what made MOCDS endearing, that the author had walked into another culture and was getting used to it). I'll throw in a report when I'm finished.
This just got to me from Amazon. It's next on my list after I'm done with Futebol: Soccer, The Brazilian Way
Shocking, I think you and I have the same bookcase. I have Futebol, but I haven't got around to it yet. And I might be a while, since I have 2 1000 page books I want to finish before I get to it. I'm on page 120; it is a good book, laugh out loud funny in parts.
Liked it. Read a book based on Parma fans, borrowed it from a friend. I thought it was somewhat decent, but not as good as this. Really felt that you as well as the author were right up in there following the team.
The big difference between the two is that Parks was a long-time soccer fan and long-time resident of Verona before he started writing the book. So he is less naive than McGuinness (who, despite insinuating in the book that he only discovered soccer in 1994 did sort of follow the World Cup before). Personally, I thought McGuiness came off as a bit of the ugly American. But I did like the book.
i thought he was a complete jackass. this guy never played 1 minute of soccer in his entire life and he had the balls to go up to the coach and suggest lineups and tactics! i could not have been happier that castel di sangro was not relegated, proving that mcguiness didn't know anything about the game.
i thought basically that mcguiness was the ultimate eurosnob. of course yo uhave to realize when the book was written the us hadn't done anything in world soccer, and mls hadnt really started. there are a great number of factual areas when it comes to rules. i believe he calls the penalty area the 15 yard box or something one time. but his naivete and arrogance made it a bit trying at times. i would highly recommend Fever Pitch, as the perfect book about soccer fandom. it is far more about the obsession that im sure many of us here on bigsoccer have.
I've read Fever Pitch and while I liked it, I still think A Season with Verona is better. If anyone has a chance to read it, give it a shot. It's a very entertaining book, Dio Boia!
Metro Joe Addo is in Castel di Sangro. I havent read it myself but I think it had something to do with him getting shafted by the Castel manager cause Joe was black. MetroFanatic actually asked him about it last year: MF: Joe, you are mentioned in one of my favorite books, "The Miracle of Castle di Sangro". Addo: It was a very strange situation. I came from the Olympics and they wanted to sign me and I was there, and for some reason, I don't know what happened, I read it in the book, what really happened. The author sent me a copy. http://www.metrofanatic.com/mf/story.jsp?ID=574
Too bad: probably would've had another couple of books in him if not for the illness. I stand by my respect for him and for Miracle.
The Miracle of was pretty entertaining. I enjoyed how, the longer he was with the club and watched more and more practice games and matches, the more of an expert and the more vocal he became. It was all pretty funny. Shame for him to go that way.