BOOK
REVIEW: THE WORLD THROUGH SOCCER: THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF A GLOBAL SPORT, BY
TAMIR BAR ON
APPEARED IN RETOS INTERNACIONALES, 2014.
Mary Carmen Peloche Barrera
ITESM Campus Puebla
Master’s degree in Public Management by the
Tecnológico de Monterrey (2012).
Bachelor’s
degree in International Relations by the Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Puebla
(2010). Full time professor in the department of International Relations and
Political Sciences, which belongs to the School of Law and Diplomacy at the
Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Puebla. “Citizenship and Democracy” professor
at Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Virtual University. Faculty Advisor for Harvard’s
Model United Nations.
Tamir Bar-On was born in Beersheba, Israel but
migrated with his family to Toronto, Canada at a very young age. He has a PhD
in Political Science by McGill University and is currently working as a
professor in the Department of International Relations at the Tecnológico de
Monterrey Campus Querétaro. Bar-On also wrote “Where Have All Fascist Gone?”
and “Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to Modernity”, published in
2007 and 2013, respectively.
Through eleven chapters, Tamir Bar-On shows us how
Football Soccer works as an originator of national identities; as a tool for
ideological and political control; as a catalyser for social transformation; as
an inherent part of our faith and beliefs and as a leadership promoter. Besides
the aforementioned, Bar-On explains the intrinsic relations football soccer
maintains with ethics, the arts, marketing and politics. Each chapter
represents a “lesson to learn” based on what the sports chronicler, Luis Omar
Tapia, defines as the world’s most beautiful sport. For each lesson, Bar-On has
carefully chosen different football players who help exemplify them, such as
the contemporary Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Xavi (Spain), and Neymar Jr.
(Brazil), the former stars like Hugo Sánchez (Mexico), Franz Beckenbauer
(Germany) and Elias Figeroa (Chile) or the already deceased like José Leandro
Andrade (Uruguay) and Igor Netto (USSR).
The bibliography used by the author for his research
encompasses books, articles (both printed and online), web pages, videos,
interviews, blogs and news, among others. The total amount of consulted sources
is 480! All of them transformed into an adequately referenced work. In this
way, Bar-On leans on well-known authors such as Eduardo Galeano, Carlos
Monsiváis, Albert Camus and Juan Villoro in order to introduce wondrous
interpretations of the different meanings of Football. Other authors such as
Joseph Nye, George Orwell and Martin Heidegger figure in the analysis of the
world the author performs with regard to soccer. Finally, he makes use of
interviews and personal experiences of football players like Clint Dempsey
(USA), Pelé (Brazil) and Jorge Valdano (Argentina).
The way in which the actor develops each of the eleven
lessons is completely fascinating, since he manages to create a perfect
relation between the topic, the chosen football player and the arguments
provided. For all football lovers, “The World Through Soccer” offers a bunch of
stories that intertwine with this sport, be it directly (players, clubs and
national teams) or indirectly (political, social, economic, cultural, national
and international contexts). For those who don’t love this sport, this book
represents an interesting opportunity for seeing the world through a different
lens. This is how, in every different chapter, we fill ourselves with new
knowledge.
Even if books linking football and politics had been
written before, none of them offers as many approaches or analysis as Bar-on’s
last work does. “The World Through Soccer” has the potential for becoming an
obliged reference in football bibliography. An exquisite, entertaining and
fantastic book!
Bar-On,
T. (2014). The World Through Soccer: The
Cultural Impact of a Global Sport. (1ST Edition). Maryland:
Rowman & Littlefield.
