I thought you might enjoy this book introduction from a new book - Portrait of Passion. www.portraitofpassion.com. This book is about playing soccer when you’re five years old. It’s about playing soccer when you only have a ball and some grass. It’s about playing soccer when your high school friends are watching. It’s about playing soccer to get a college degree. It’s about playing soccer hurt. It’s about playing soccer for your parents, your friends, the ones you love. Yourself. Your country. The pictures and stories are of athletes who are like every other athlete who rises to the top. They start young, and learn to laugh inside when they do something well. It feeds them to do more. They are survivors, the ones who are driven, the ones who are lucky, the ones havethe knack for persevering. Being consistent. Being trustworthy. The ones who know how to win. This book is about a game that flows from end to end. No place to get a blast of oxygen. No time outs. No excuses. Just shin guards and a handful of rules. And the ability to dance on a moving ball. Or nail it. It’s a game that grabs the world’s imagination, yet fights for every second of recognition it gets at home in the United States. It’s a game of vision, of what you see in your teammates. Of knowing what is developing on the field before anyone can see it. Anticipation. Timing. Accuracy. Chess with sweat, strength and speed. Women’s soccer. Passion. Yours for the taking. Breath-taking.
The old thread ideas are the best. (I realize this is turning into the "Women's Fans & Player Threads & Let's Shift Some Product" forum ... @blissett, sorry for relegating that crispy donut thread, feel free to revive it anytime you like) As mentioned in the history thread, Jean Williams' British retrospective from 2003 is an academic masterwork Less academic, but it sounds promising Good advice: Of course, for some players their slogan is "Never Say 'Pass'" And a book from Italy that @blissett brought up, also in the history thread I assume Gwendolyn Oxenham's book is very good too, but haven't tracked it down yet. (Her movie was the best movie.)
A book by Kim Hon-bi made a splash In South Korea - an essay about her joining a women's football team: The book named Elegant and Exciting Women's Football (우아하고호쾌한여자축구) was also translated into a Japanese version by Sonoko Koyamauchi - it's exceedingly hard to find info in other languages, but the Kbook Eng site says: "Even called a must-read essay on daily sport, it is a story about women who are in love with playing football. Being an essay on football, it uses football as a metaphor to refer to the body, life, and the world of women; it was widely praised by numerous female readers and gripped their imaginations" - and Kim has won accolades from Bookteen.net and the bookstores Kyobo and Yes24.com, where the writers' poll named it their book of the year. Best of all, there's, a, like... video version of the book (?) A Japanese perspective by Kazuhiro Ishii is on the football site WE Love. There's also a book review on Park Bidan's Korean Youtube channel - I can't tell if she liked it or not, but she's wearing a beret, so we can certainly trust that she knows her stuff.
I'm late to this thread, but I can say that I rate "Under the Lights and in the Dark" as excellent. Definitely recommend. As for Jean Williams' books, I'd also recommend "A Beautiful Game." (more international, less UK-centric) And for USWNT-centric, I'd say "The National Team" by Caitlyn Murray and "The Girls of Summer "by Jere Longman (about the 1999 WWC) are both worth reading. ("The Girls of Summer" is probably less worth reading though if you've seen the ESPN documentary on the USWNT at the 1999 WWC.) There are some threads on the USWNT forums about US-focused books (and whether posters recommend or not): The National Team book thread Some on Lloyd's memoir And on Wambach's book "Forward" And Hope Solo's memoir "Solo"
"Piłkarki urodzone, by grać" heralded as Polish Women's Football Almanac ❗️𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗜𝗘𝗥𝗔❗️ Wraz z ekipą @PZPNGrassroots stworzyliśmy dla Was wyjątkową publikację, której na rynku jeszcze nie było. 📖Wszystko o polskiej piłce kobiecej w jednym miejscu! Więcej o publikacji oraz książka w PDF do pobrania TUTAJ👉 https://t.co/FyuKRqQuqp pic.twitter.com/E2SgJVQcJY— Łączy nas piłka kobieca (@laczynaskobieca) December 28, 2020 you can download it for free in PDF (book written in polish though)