Futebol – The Brazilian Way of Life

Published May 6, 2014 by Bloomsbury – Originally published in 2002 and updated for the 2014 World Cup

While soccer is rapidly becoming popular in the USA, it has long been a national obsession in Brazil. The beautiful game in Brazil takes on new meaning with pitch-perfect clarity in Alex Bellos newly revised Futebol. Bellos takes us into the world where soccer equals oxygen and the game symbolizes racial harmony and where flamboyance, innovation and skill come together to be celebrated. As a country, Brazil has won more World Cups than anyone else. Bellos bring this world of soccer alive and takes us where few have ever gone.

Soccer unites. That is even what my 12 year old son thinks and says after playing with total strangers on a team in Scotland that took on players from Ireland. How wonderful it is to discover the world through soccer.

Futebol – The Brazilian Way of Life by Alex Bellos lets the reader discover how soccer is at the very heart of Brazil. Futebol takes us into the world where soccer equals oxygen and the game symbolizes racial harmony and where flamboyance, innovation and skill come together to be celebrated.

What is the role soccer has played in the history of Brazil and in the lives of its people? Soccer is an enchanting game and can unify people from all walks of life – from the poorest of poor to the most insanely wealthy, being one with a ball and part of team effort creates an equality that cuts across social and economic boundaries and elevates intelligence and ability. Playing soccer well is more like dancing to beautiful music than another sport.

Alex Bellos is smart.  And he knows soccer. As the ghost writer for Pele’s highly acclaimed and best selling 2006 autobiography, Bellos understands from the inside out the Brazilian Way of Life and explores this in his new book Futebol. More than just a soccer lover, Bellos holds a degree in mathematics and philosophy from the esteemed Oxford University in England and has worked for that country’s top newspaper, the Guardian. Bellos is definitely a man to watch and a great writer.

Soccer players are celebrities showered in money, women and cars and the loss of a game can be a tragic and shattering event. Soccer, or as Bellos calls this game, football, arrived in Brazil in 1894 and it was then referred to as a violent British sport. Brazil fell in love with the game and obviously excelled – as a country, Brazil has won more World Cups than anyone else.

As Brazil prepares to host the 2014 World Cup, it is the perfect time to read Futebol and discover the Brazilian Way of Live.

If only we could let soccer unite the world more, I wonder what a world we would live in.

The publisher Bloomsbury says on their new book Futebol:

Since the 1950s, when Pelé first started playing, soccer has been how the world sees Brazil, but it is also how Brazilians see themselves. The essence of their game is one in which prodigious individual skills outshine team tactics, where dribbles and delicate flicks are preferred over physical challenges or long-distance passes, where technique has all the elements of dance and, indeed, is often described as such. At their best, Brazilian soccer players are both athletes and artists.

Bellos, a veteran journalist and author whose star has continued to rise since Futebol was first published in 2002, revisits his search for what the great Brazilian striker Ronaldo has called the “true truth” of the Brazilian way of life. With an unerring eye for an illustrative story and a pitch-perfect ear for the voices of the people he meets, Bellos uncovers the nuanced role soccer has played in the history of Brazil and the lives of its people.

Updated and with a new chapter covering recent events in Brazil, this revised edition of Futebol is perfectly timed to coincide with the 2014 World Cup, as the world turns its rapt attention to Brazil and their Beautiful Game and the country once again becomes the capital of “the world’s game.”