When Good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and don't give a damn who performs it (Miracle of Castel di Sangro - Joe McGinniss)

Member Name: huggy2009

Product:	Miracle of Castel di Sangro - Joe McGinniss
Date:	06/06/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written, very entertaining, great access, some funny anecdotes

Disadvantages: The writers desire to tell the manager how to manage is very annoying

This is a football book but its also a sociological study of football and the Italian psyche, it is written by an American giving it a different stance to many other football books and digs beneath the surface of tactics and games to cover an extraordinary season in the life of the small football club Castel di Sangro.


Whats it about:

In 1996 Castel di Sangro, a small Italian town with little money and a population of only 5000 managed to gain promotion to the Italian Serie B Football league (The equivalent of the English Championship), this is the second highest league in the nation and one below possibly the most glamorous league on the planet. Being a small town club the league had risen from Amateur level to this level of professionalism within 10 years, but is all as it seems.

Joe McGinniss, an American with a love of football follows the club through their first season in Serie B and lives close to the Manager and players, he details the relationships he shares with them and the relationships they share with each other, talks about the ambitions of players, the manager and the chairman, the issues holding them back and describes the games in detail not holding back in anyway.

This being Italy the issue of corruption is never far from the surface, there are games where star players are dropped or sold and McGinnis tries to find out whether this is simply due to the clubs financial status or something shadier.

We feel for some of the players, the withered old pro with his last shot at the big time, or the kid rejected by the big clubs who wants to show how good he is, McGinniss' relationship with the players is interesting, some snub him for being an American, some snub him for being a journalist and others welcome him whole heartedly and want to talk and talk and talk.

The book has a real warmth for the club but at the same time doesn't shy away from bein brutally honest about everyone, you can imagine McGinniss would never be welcome there again after some of his assessments.

I found the book to be a mixture of a fairy tale, the small guy reaching the top and a real profile of the strengths and weaknesses of the human being, we see players who are henpecked, others who are Italian macho idiots, some who have to throw games to make ends meat and others whose dignity and self-worth will not allow them to do anything to dishonour themselves, in this sense it is a wonderful book and the relationship between McGinniss and the explosive manager Osvaldo Jaconi is interesting, we can feel the tension at all times and this really is my only criticism of the book too, I did feel that McGinniss at many points oversteps the mark and he does accept this at moments in telling the Manager how the team should play and why they are going wrong. With no real footballing background other than a love of the game, McGinniss is a terrace Manager and nothing more, somebody who can imagine how the game should be and its easy to see how his criticisms and comments could irk an experienced Italian football manager.

Overall its a great study of Football, the Italian village mentality and the psyche of teams and sportsmen. Its well written and entertaining but often quite irritating too.

The book is 407 pages long and covers an entire season in the life of the team, it is available for £7.69 on Amazon, but you can buy it for much less through Marketplace, or even swap it for free on www.readitswapit.com.

Summary: When Good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and don't give a damn who performs it