Futebol - The Brazilian Way Of Life

The Brazilian football team is one of the modern wonders of the world. At its best it exudes a skill, flamboyance and romantic pull like nothing else on earth. Football is how the world sees Brazil and how Brazilians see themselves. The game symbolises racial harmony, flamboyance, youth, innovation and skill, and yet football is also a microcosm of Latin America's largest country and contains all of its contradictions. Travelling extensively from the Uruguayan border to the northeastern backlands, from the coastal cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to the Amazon jungle-Bellos shows how Brazil changed football and how football shaped Brazil. He tells the stories behind the great players, like Pele and Garrincha, between the great teams, like Corinthians and Vasco de Gama, and the great matches, as well as extraordinary stories from people and pitches all over this vast country. With an unerring eye for a good story and a marvellous ear for the voices of the people he meets, Alex Bellos describes the startling range of football spinoffs found in Brazil; from Autoball, literally football with cars and a giant leather ball to Ecoball, played in the heart of the rainforest, from Button football and its highly regulated procedures organised by fearsome Buttonistas to the truly alarming Footbull (yes with bulls).

"Compelling...Alternately funny and dark...Bellos offers a cast of characters as colorful as a Carnival parade." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"It's a bonus that Bellos' aim is not just to amuse, but to find meaning and context behind the spectacle...Bellos weaves a tapestry of contemporary Brazil from football threads as divergent as the great Pelé and the glamorous Roza FC, perhaps the world's only all-transvestite team...rich and colorful."-New York Newsday
"Required reading." -Soccer America
"Alex Bellos trace's [soccer's] evolution in Brazil, and emerges with a fascinating portrait of Brazil itself, a land of deep contradictions and an even deeper love for the game that bridges those contradictions...With a seasoned reporter's knack for dredging up curios, he unveils one variation on the game after another."-San Antonio Express News