What do you think?
Rate this book
11v11: An Oral History of the Two Greatest High School Soccer Teams That Never Actually Existed
At high schools on opposite sides of town, two groups of girls showed up for the first day of soccer practice, and everyone thought they knew how the season would go.
West Sycamore's team had always been pretty average. No one expected that to change.
East Sycamore's team was the best in the state, with a lineup full of All-Stars. Anything less than a state championship would have been a disappointment.
But in sports, things rarely go according to plan. There were new arrivals. There were injuries. There were red cards and penalties and fights in the locker room. Boyfriends and girlfriends and deaths in the family. Add it all together and you get a season people are still talking about 10 years later.
This is the story of that season, the greatest girls soccer season that never actually happened, told through interviews with the young women who didn't actually live it.
West Sycamore's team had always been pretty average. No one expected that to change.
East Sycamore's team was the best in the state, with a lineup full of All-Stars. Anything less than a state championship would have been a disappointment.
But in sports, things rarely go according to plan. There were new arrivals. There were injuries. There were red cards and penalties and fights in the locker room. Boyfriends and girlfriends and deaths in the family. Add it all together and you get a season people are still talking about 10 years later.
This is the story of that season, the greatest girls soccer season that never actually happened, told through interviews with the young women who didn't actually live it.
- GenresYoung Adult
264 pages, Paperback
Published October 21, 2017
About the author
C.I. DeMann
3 books15 followersC.I. DeMann lives in Portland, Oregon, and spends far too much time thinking about sports, music, time travel, and doughnuts.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 6, 2017
Jeff Buckley once said, “the goal is in the process.” That couldn’t be more true with this book. From the getgo it is pretty obvious what is going to happen on a macro level (we know these 2 teams are going to end up playing a HUGE game that will come down to the wire, how could it NOT happen?). But that’s not the point, the point is in the process, how the author gets them (and the reader) there.
The author uses clever and unique storytelling in that everything is done via interviews with the players and coaches from both teams. The story of the soccer season moves seemlessly in chronological order soley through the vantage points of each individual character.
There is just enough backstory and character development with the interviewees to cause the reader to care for them. But the most important character of the book is soccer itself.
Most likely, if you don’t like or are not interested in soccer you probably won’t enjoy this read. The goal is in the process, the story is about how the soccer season and games unfold. The charming characters are used to teach the reader about soccer.
...And it is beautiful.
The author uses clever and unique storytelling in that everything is done via interviews with the players and coaches from both teams. The story of the soccer season moves seemlessly in chronological order soley through the vantage points of each individual character.
There is just enough backstory and character development with the interviewees to cause the reader to care for them. But the most important character of the book is soccer itself.
Most likely, if you don’t like or are not interested in soccer you probably won’t enjoy this read. The goal is in the process, the story is about how the soccer season and games unfold. The charming characters are used to teach the reader about soccer.
...And it is beautiful.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 19, 2017
Very different format alternating "interviews" with the characters. Engaging, fun, realistic--captured the soccer excitement perfectly. The characters were interesting and grew during the course of the season. Good diversity, seeing and feeling life through so many different people's eyes. Recommended. Especially for soccer fans.
October 5, 2021
As author C. I. DeMann notes in the introduction, the 1.6 million American girls registered with the U.S. Soccer Federation represent more players than the youth registries of all other countries combined, so it's no wonder that American women's soccer has had a global impact. This little novel, written oral-history style as an unbroken series of interview quotes, tells the story of an intercity high-school girls' soccer rivalry that improbably involved ten future players in the Women's World Cup.
For several years, DeMann's weekly columns for the Portland Timbers soccer fan site StumptownFooty.com were the best things written about Portland soccer—witty, world-wise, yet enthusiastic. Some of that is also on display here, but because the players are high-school girls, the amused cynicism of DeMann's pro sports coverage is virtually absent. In many ways, it's a book about soccer that's only secondly about high-school sports. The team dynamics, the injuries, the chance events that change the face of a match, the off-field issues that are or aren't carried on to the field—all come into play as they would for any team. It can be very exciting.
Why DeMann chose to write about high-school soccer is impossible to know, if it's not simply to raise awareness of and respect for teenage athletes. All the young women interviewees are decent people remembering an exciting and stressful time in their lives. It might have been more realistic and interesting if at least one of them had exhibited some seriously self-destructive behavior while on the team—they were teenagers, after all. But that's a question that didn't occur to me until after I'd finished.
Certainly if you need a reason to pay more attention to girls' sports, this book will give you one. And if you're a parent or a friend of a young athlete in school, you may learn something as well.
For several years, DeMann's weekly columns for the Portland Timbers soccer fan site StumptownFooty.com were the best things written about Portland soccer—witty, world-wise, yet enthusiastic. Some of that is also on display here, but because the players are high-school girls, the amused cynicism of DeMann's pro sports coverage is virtually absent. In many ways, it's a book about soccer that's only secondly about high-school sports. The team dynamics, the injuries, the chance events that change the face of a match, the off-field issues that are or aren't carried on to the field—all come into play as they would for any team. It can be very exciting.
Why DeMann chose to write about high-school soccer is impossible to know, if it's not simply to raise awareness of and respect for teenage athletes. All the young women interviewees are decent people remembering an exciting and stressful time in their lives. It might have been more realistic and interesting if at least one of them had exhibited some seriously self-destructive behavior while on the team—they were teenagers, after all. But that's a question that didn't occur to me until after I'd finished.
Certainly if you need a reason to pay more attention to girls' sports, this book will give you one. And if you're a parent or a friend of a young athlete in school, you may learn something as well.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews