The Mammoth Book of the World Cup

by Nick Holt

A guide to the one of the few truly international events. It covers everything from its roots in Uruguay in 1930 to the modern all-singing, all-dancing Greatest Show on Earth!

Genres: Nonfiction, Sports, Football

784 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2014

Reviews

[Michael Sedor · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's the most lively and best read of the World Cup reference book genre. See its fun listicles and all-time XIs. However, it's truly astounding how wrong -- in other words typically English or different than mine -- all the writer's opinions are about players, games results, etc... For example, he can't possibly rate Gerd Müller over Il Fenomeno Ronaldo, can he?

[JDK1962 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but probably best treated as a reference, rather than a cover-to-cover read (which is the route I took). It helps to be a Brit, since there's a fair bit of slang. Some near-random insertions of team lineups, refs, cautions, and dismissals (while completely ignoring other games), and some padding (the "Heaven XI" bits in particular). This is fantastic candidate for an iPad book: it would have been so great to be able to click to see specific clips (or a few of the classic games in their entirety). However, I suppose FIFA never would have allowed that.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining and informative way to get to know the World Cups that happened until 2010, with the advantage that Holt doesn't edit his thoughts at all, which gives a clearer picture of each addition, rather than a sanitized version of it. Even on consecutive readings of each World Cup, you don't feel the repetition nearly as much as you would think.

For an international reader, the insistence on the British teams gets a little tedious, rather than informative. Also, his predictions for 2014 are quite a bit off (though he himself points out that is likely) and his use of Holland is irritating.

A good read that should really have a better cover: a World Cup book showing Neymar playing at the Olympic Games is silly.

[Daniel Sanchez Ojalvo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A must have for any avid football fan. However, the authors prose in relation to the matches is lackluster and often gets boring. Nevertheless, as anyone having tried to write about a football match has noticed, translating what you see on the pitch or on the screen is very frustrating and never really gets through as the real thing does.

[Eyob · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think this book is good to read for soccer players because it actually talks about the roles and talks about piston of the game and it tells les you what do or not do.and one thing I learned from this book is you must Stretch before you playa any game and another thing I learned is how to call offside.