The Reduced History of Football: The Story of the World's Greatest Game Freshly Squeezed into 90 Minutes / Justyn Barnes, Aubrey Ganguly

This is the tale of the great game of football—soccer to the Americans—as it's never been presented in history: a side-splitting collection of match reports, correspondence, and reminiscences from pundits, commentators, players, officials, and spectators who weren't there but should have been. Here, a Victorian public school headmaster bemoans the advent of soccer, PC Scory records the altercations at the White Horse Cup Final in his notebook, the Russian linesman has second thoughts about Geoff Hurst's equalizer, God berates the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires about Maradona's claims of divine intervention, and David Beckham's hairdresser provides David Seaman with coiffeur tips in the aftermath of the England's World Cup 2002 exit. For the first time, the nutmegs, the tantrums, and the penalty-shootouts that have provided the ubiquitous topic of male conversation for generations are all entertainingly evoked.