Hello, everyone. I am a high school sophomore and I have been a "lurker" here at Big Soccer for almost a year. I am a diehard soccer fan. I play for my school and my favorite teams are Wolverhampton, AC Milan, and Hellas Verona. I am currently working on a high school research paper for my world history class. Our teacher told us we could choose any topic as long as it took place in the 20th century and the United States had no impact. Being a futbol fanatic, I chose soccer as my topic. What I am asking of you BigSoccer posters, is if you can recommend to me any type of soccer book, website, magazine article, etc. that I could possibly use in a research project. Some possible angles I am pursuing are hooligans/fan behavior and game fixing. Any other angle ideas are greatly apprieciated! Thanks! :-D
You need to do some basic research into your topic before you attempt to develop a question. This is the place to start: http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/
There was a book put out this summer called How Soccer Explains the World : An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer. It's an easy read, relatively short, and contains a bunch of interesting vignettes about various different countries and topics - Religion and Soccer in Glasgow, Cronyism in Brazil, a whole bunch more that I don't really remember. I'd strongly recommend it, at the very least for ideas. Here's a link to the bigsoccer discussion about it: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=120802&page=2&pp=15 And here's amazon.com's amazon.com/foer I also feel obliged to recommend that you pick an MLS team to support.
Major advice is to see if you are able to access the books that you will need for your research. There are a good many books on hooliganism and game fixin'...only problem is that most of 'em are written by English authors. There is a whole cottage industry on hooliganism. But, here are some links of interest: Barnes and Noble Social Issues Research Centre More Books on Hooliganism BBC TV Special On Hooliganism El Chapulin Colorado
I thought Foer's thesis was a bit of a stretch. Depending on your time frame (to get your paper done), try amazon and -- more likely -- amazon in the uk for Andrei Markovits' (sp?) Offside:Soccer and U.S. Exceptionalism. If you can find it in a library, rest assured that you have found the greatest library in the history of the world. Ditto on showing MLS some love.
If you don't mind watching a lot of television, I would suggest going to the video store or library and see if they have the DVD/VHS series "The History of Soccer: The Beautiful Game." Over 13 hours of history of the game and it is just awesome. Here is the link to the website: http://www.shoutfactory.com/hos/ You can also get more info on it here: http://www.historyoffootball.co.uk/flash_HoF.html The second link is to the original version. It was renamed soccer when it was released in the U.S. Enjoy!
I actually pull for the San Jose Earthquakes and I am a fan of the MLS. Although I follow Premiership and Serie A more, I try to catch every MLS game shown on ESPN. Thanks to everyone so far!