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The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy
Master storyteller Joe McGinniss travels to Italy to cover the unlikely success of a ragtag minor league soccer team--and delivers a brilliant and utterly unforgettable story of life in an off-the-beaten-track Italian village.
When Joe McGinniss sets out for the remote Italian village of Castel di Sangro one summer, he merely intends to spend a season with the village's soccer team, which only weeks before had, miraculously, reached the second-highest-ranking professional league in the land. But soon he finds himself embroiled with an absurd yet irresistible cast of characters, including the team's owner, described by the New York Times as "straight out of a Mario Puzo novel," and coach Osvaldo Jaconi, whose only English word is the one he uses to describe "bulldozer."
As the riotous, edge-of-your-seat season unfolds, McGinniss develops a deepening bond with the team, their village and its people, and their country. Traveling with the miracle team, from the isolated mountain region where Castel di Sangro is located to gritty towns as well as grand cities, McGinniss introduces us to an Italy that no tourist guidebook has ever described, and comes away with a "sad, funny, desolating, and inspiring story--everything, in fact, a story should be" (Los Angeles Times) .
When Joe McGinniss sets out for the remote Italian village of Castel di Sangro one summer, he merely intends to spend a season with the village's soccer team, which only weeks before had, miraculously, reached the second-highest-ranking professional league in the land. But soon he finds himself embroiled with an absurd yet irresistible cast of characters, including the team's owner, described by the New York Times as "straight out of a Mario Puzo novel," and coach Osvaldo Jaconi, whose only English word is the one he uses to describe "bulldozer."
As the riotous, edge-of-your-seat season unfolds, McGinniss develops a deepening bond with the team, their village and its people, and their country. Traveling with the miracle team, from the isolated mountain region where Castel di Sangro is located to gritty towns as well as grand cities, McGinniss introduces us to an Italy that no tourist guidebook has ever described, and comes away with a "sad, funny, desolating, and inspiring story--everything, in fact, a story should be" (Los Angeles Times) .
404 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
About the author
Joe McGinniss
36 books259 followersJoe McGinniss was an American journalist, non-fiction writer and novelist. He first came to prominence with the best-selling The Selling of the President 1968 which described the marketing of then-presidential candidate Richard Nixon. It spent more than six months on best-seller lists. He is popularly known for his trilogy of bestselling true crime books — Fatal Vision, Blind Faith and Cruel Doubt — which were adapted into several TV miniseries and movies. Over the course of forty years, McGinniss published twelve books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 324 reviews
May 1, 2013
2.5 stars.
This book should've been called Joe McGinniss Goes to Italy So That Joe McGinniss Can Talk to Italians and Report on how They React to Joe McGinniss by Joe McGinniss.
A really great sports story is hidden somewhere in these 404 pages, but I'd forgive you if you missed it. McGinniss spends most of the book arguing with the coach about tactics (even though he knows nothing about soccer), claiming that he's as close to the team as if they were family (even though a player's son says his father won't talk to McGinniss because he's an idiot), and provoking the local organized crime bosses for no apparent reason. To the writer's credit (I guess), he is the one telling us what a jackass he is. But he can't possibly comprehend how badly he comes off, and as a protagonist for this story he is profoundly uninteresting.
The drama of the soccer makes the book readable by itself (although it's so obvious that McGinniss doesn't know the game that it lends an unreliability to even the most basic reporting), but mostly I found myself annoyed. I will say, without being too spoiler-heavy, that there is more of an ending to the McGinniss-centric narrative than I would've thought possible, which redeemed the self-centered style somewhat. Not nearly enough.
This book should've been called Joe McGinniss Goes to Italy So That Joe McGinniss Can Talk to Italians and Report on how They React to Joe McGinniss by Joe McGinniss.
A really great sports story is hidden somewhere in these 404 pages, but I'd forgive you if you missed it. McGinniss spends most of the book arguing with the coach about tactics (even though he knows nothing about soccer), claiming that he's as close to the team as if they were family (even though a player's son says his father won't talk to McGinniss because he's an idiot), and provoking the local organized crime bosses for no apparent reason. To the writer's credit (I guess), he is the one telling us what a jackass he is. But he can't possibly comprehend how badly he comes off, and as a protagonist for this story he is profoundly uninteresting.
The drama of the soccer makes the book readable by itself (although it's so obvious that McGinniss doesn't know the game that it lends an unreliability to even the most basic reporting), but mostly I found myself annoyed. I will say, without being too spoiler-heavy, that there is more of an ending to the McGinniss-centric narrative than I would've thought possible, which redeemed the self-centered style somewhat. Not nearly enough.
June 25, 2008
Before there were all those book trading sites like bookmooch, bookcrossing and even goodreads, I took my copy of The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy, signed my name in the inside cover and sent it to a friend. It made the rounds and came back to me after five people had read it. I sent it out again; it has since disappeared. But that's okay because I know that at least six people, other than myself (and including my Mom who passed a couple of years ago), read the book and loved it (with the exception of my friend Russ. But he's a bitter shell of a man ;)).
It is a wonderful story about why football earns our love (and maybe even deserves it), and there is no book I can think of that I would rather reread.
It is written by Joe McGinniss, he of the true crime books and the pending Sarah Palin biography. His undeniable love for the sport, for the men he follows in the small town in rural Italy, for tactics and skills and beauty and passion and people and food and folly, makes the "miracle" (and miraculous it is in footballing terms) one of the most entertaining reads I've ever embarked on.
Of course, this could be because I am a HUGE football fan, I watch every match of every World Cup and every Euro (including all the qualifiers I can). I watch every match Arsenal plays, and if I can't watch I listen on the radio. If I am bored late at night I watch any match that is on -- even MLS -- so I am a football maniac (and Kiki, who's switching shelves at the moment, just passed me my LEGO "Soccer" Stadium, so there you go).
But I think all you really need to love to love The Miracle of Castel di Sangro is life. In this book football -- and everything that goes with it -- is life. And life in that small town in the Appenines is trancendant.
So...yeah...I dig this book.
p.s. if you have a copy that you've read and loved please send it to me so that I can read it again. I want a copy that's been touched by other eyes and hands.
It is a wonderful story about why football earns our love (and maybe even deserves it), and there is no book I can think of that I would rather reread.
It is written by Joe McGinniss, he of the true crime books and the pending Sarah Palin biography. His undeniable love for the sport, for the men he follows in the small town in rural Italy, for tactics and skills and beauty and passion and people and food and folly, makes the "miracle" (and miraculous it is in footballing terms) one of the most entertaining reads I've ever embarked on.
Of course, this could be because I am a HUGE football fan, I watch every match of every World Cup and every Euro (including all the qualifiers I can). I watch every match Arsenal plays, and if I can't watch I listen on the radio. If I am bored late at night I watch any match that is on -- even MLS -- so I am a football maniac (and Kiki, who's switching shelves at the moment, just passed me my LEGO "Soccer" Stadium, so there you go).
But I think all you really need to love to love The Miracle of Castel di Sangro is life. In this book football -- and everything that goes with it -- is life. And life in that small town in the Appenines is trancendant.
So...yeah...I dig this book.
p.s. if you have a copy that you've read and loved please send it to me so that I can read it again. I want a copy that's been touched by other eyes and hands.
July 30, 2007
In the early stages of fanaticism there’s a giddy sense of becoming part of something larger-than-life. In time, a fan is rewarded for picking up on subtleties, aspiring to be among the cognoscenti. Then in the more mature and philosophical stages the proselytizing begins and the sport may even become “a metaphor for life.” With an objective step back, though, Gods and heroes become mortal. Joe McGinniss is a football (a.k.a. soccer) fan who has been through these stages. He does a great job describing how emotionally all-consuming il calcio can be to its many devotees in Italy. The die-hard AC Milan supporter in the preface was a vivid example. Joe’s status as a passionate fan may also explain his blinkered self-absorption. For example, he second-guesses the coach at every turn—-something I suppose a true partisan may feel is his right and duty.
What started as pure delight that someone as perceptive and witty as Joe was writing about his exhilarating days deep in Italian football later became a slightly disappointing realization that Joe is an even bigger fan of Joe. He wants us all to know that he quickly learned the new language and became one of the boys. Then, when their laundry got dirty, he shows us how sparkling clean his own was in contrast. The story is so compelling, though, and the personalities so well drawn that the negatives fall short of tipping the scales. Ultimately you have to give the book credit for making you care enough to want to tweak it.
What started as pure delight that someone as perceptive and witty as Joe was writing about his exhilarating days deep in Italian football later became a slightly disappointing realization that Joe is an even bigger fan of Joe. He wants us all to know that he quickly learned the new language and became one of the boys. Then, when their laundry got dirty, he shows us how sparkling clean his own was in contrast. The story is so compelling, though, and the personalities so well drawn that the negatives fall short of tipping the scales. Ultimately you have to give the book credit for making you care enough to want to tweak it.
September 12, 2018
(This review is a bit spoilery so avoid if you are sensitive to such things – even for non-fiction books).
When asked to name my favourite football book, I immediately jump to 4 or 5 books I read in my late teens or early twenties – Football Against the Enemy, The Hand of God, Brillant Orange, Morbo, or The Miracle of Castel di Sangro. These were among the books that opened my eyes to the joys of great sports-writing that went beyond players autobiographies and told you as much about a time or a place as they did about the sport/player.
I first read The Miracle of Castel di Sangro in 2002 in the booze filled summer between finishing school and starting university. I was totally captivated by the story and devoured the book, reading it twice within a couple of weeks and recommending it to everyone I could think of. I’ve hesitated to reread it in recent years due to a nagging fear that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t live up to my memory.
Re-reading it now, 16 years later, I still found the story as wonderful, absurd and brilliant but found myself disliking McGinniss, the author and narrator, who sets himself right at the centre of the story.
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro tells of the story of the 1996/97 Serie B campaign of tiny Castel Di Sangro after they had achieved an unexpected promotion (the ‘Miracle’) to the second division in Italian football. McGinniss, a successful American writer in his 50’s, spends the season with the team sharing their meals, the dressing room and eventually their secrets. McGinniss was a recent convert to football (soccer) having fallen in love with the game during USA ’94 and developing an obsession with the Divine Ponytail Roberto Baggio. He also goes to great lengths to highlight his lack of Italian, while it was seemingly of a high enough standard that he was reading Italian newspapers from the very beginning.
Castel di Sangro is a tiny town in the Abruzzo region with a population of just 5,000 people among whom reside all of the traditional Italian stereotypes – the shady businessman, the playboys, the matronly restaurant owner etc.
The story that unfolds over the season is truly remarkable – deaths, arrests, drug scandals, corruption and all the more usual drama that football brings. McGinniss really draws the reader in and creates a clear portrait of the players, the manager and the rest of the supporting cast. He also captures well the frustration of the fanatic – each game feeling like life or death, the entire mood of a week being set by what happens over 90 minutes.
Eventually however McGinniss began to irritate me – his tactical analysis and player evaluations would be a lot more convincing had he been watching football for more than two years. While he makes fun of his own attempts to influence team selection, he seems to still believe he knew better than the manager. In many ways he plays up to the boorish American stereotype – throwing tantrums at the club officials and the manager and picking fights with the local mafia boss (we assume) for no apparent reason.
Ultimately the book runs into the issue of what obligation McGinniss has to tell the whole truth or whether he should keep certain things he sees out of the book. When I first read the book, I shared McGinniss’s outrage at certain events but reading now in my mid-30’s with a bit more life experience, I found McGinniss to ultimately be disloyal and duplicitous. If this had been an objective chronicle of the season, I would understand the obligation to expose everything he saw but that isn’t what this book was. McGinniss became a central part of the story, turning players into close friends and being their confidant – trying to do both things at once leaves a sour taste.
Even with his choice to expose certain things at the end of the book, McGinniss does so in a self-centred and frankly childish manner. He acts as the victim of some grand injustice when someone with a bit more empathy would clearly have focussed on the impact on the players and the town of living in the shadow of corruption. Rather than look to explain things he doesn’t like, McGinniss acts like a spoiled child.
The ending is more McGinniss-centric than you would expect from a sports story, and in some ways explains why so much of the book centres on the author. But it doesn’t justify the excessive indulgence of McGinniss focusing so much of the narrative on himself and not on the team.
Despite that serious flaw, I still love the book. It’s a brilliant story and written in a gripping and engaging manner. McGinniss is a quality writer and uou get caught up in his passion and develop a real affection for the players and the town. It’s deservedly a classic but rereading it now I can’t help but feel there was an even better version that sadly ended up buried under the author’s ego.
You can read all of my sports book reviews at http://allsportsbooks.reviews/reviews...
When asked to name my favourite football book, I immediately jump to 4 or 5 books I read in my late teens or early twenties – Football Against the Enemy, The Hand of God, Brillant Orange, Morbo, or The Miracle of Castel di Sangro. These were among the books that opened my eyes to the joys of great sports-writing that went beyond players autobiographies and told you as much about a time or a place as they did about the sport/player.
I first read The Miracle of Castel di Sangro in 2002 in the booze filled summer between finishing school and starting university. I was totally captivated by the story and devoured the book, reading it twice within a couple of weeks and recommending it to everyone I could think of. I’ve hesitated to reread it in recent years due to a nagging fear that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t live up to my memory.
Re-reading it now, 16 years later, I still found the story as wonderful, absurd and brilliant but found myself disliking McGinniss, the author and narrator, who sets himself right at the centre of the story.
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro tells of the story of the 1996/97 Serie B campaign of tiny Castel Di Sangro after they had achieved an unexpected promotion (the ‘Miracle’) to the second division in Italian football. McGinniss, a successful American writer in his 50’s, spends the season with the team sharing their meals, the dressing room and eventually their secrets. McGinniss was a recent convert to football (soccer) having fallen in love with the game during USA ’94 and developing an obsession with the Divine Ponytail Roberto Baggio. He also goes to great lengths to highlight his lack of Italian, while it was seemingly of a high enough standard that he was reading Italian newspapers from the very beginning.
Castel di Sangro is a tiny town in the Abruzzo region with a population of just 5,000 people among whom reside all of the traditional Italian stereotypes – the shady businessman, the playboys, the matronly restaurant owner etc.
The story that unfolds over the season is truly remarkable – deaths, arrests, drug scandals, corruption and all the more usual drama that football brings. McGinniss really draws the reader in and creates a clear portrait of the players, the manager and the rest of the supporting cast. He also captures well the frustration of the fanatic – each game feeling like life or death, the entire mood of a week being set by what happens over 90 minutes.
Eventually however McGinniss began to irritate me – his tactical analysis and player evaluations would be a lot more convincing had he been watching football for more than two years. While he makes fun of his own attempts to influence team selection, he seems to still believe he knew better than the manager. In many ways he plays up to the boorish American stereotype – throwing tantrums at the club officials and the manager and picking fights with the local mafia boss (we assume) for no apparent reason.
Ultimately the book runs into the issue of what obligation McGinniss has to tell the whole truth or whether he should keep certain things he sees out of the book. When I first read the book, I shared McGinniss’s outrage at certain events but reading now in my mid-30’s with a bit more life experience, I found McGinniss to ultimately be disloyal and duplicitous. If this had been an objective chronicle of the season, I would understand the obligation to expose everything he saw but that isn’t what this book was. McGinniss became a central part of the story, turning players into close friends and being their confidant – trying to do both things at once leaves a sour taste.
Even with his choice to expose certain things at the end of the book, McGinniss does so in a self-centred and frankly childish manner. He acts as the victim of some grand injustice when someone with a bit more empathy would clearly have focussed on the impact on the players and the town of living in the shadow of corruption. Rather than look to explain things he doesn’t like, McGinniss acts like a spoiled child.
The ending is more McGinniss-centric than you would expect from a sports story, and in some ways explains why so much of the book centres on the author. But it doesn’t justify the excessive indulgence of McGinniss focusing so much of the narrative on himself and not on the team.
Despite that serious flaw, I still love the book. It’s a brilliant story and written in a gripping and engaging manner. McGinniss is a quality writer and uou get caught up in his passion and develop a real affection for the players and the town. It’s deservedly a classic but rereading it now I can’t help but feel there was an even better version that sadly ended up buried under the author’s ego.
You can read all of my sports book reviews at http://allsportsbooks.reviews/reviews...
August 3, 2015
This is more than just a book about soccer. It's about relationships and how those shape both events and lives. It's about how soccer is an essential part of Italian culture, but also how Italian culture shapes the calcio. And if anyone's worried about not understanding either the soccer or the league system, McGinniss is pretty good about explaining things clearly, but not talking down to the reader. In general his writing is evocative and emotional - the sort of sports writing we need more of.
May 2, 2010
My review published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999:
Having a Ball in Italy
Author spends a year chronicling the fanatical world of a small-town soccer team
REVIEWED BY Steve Kettmann
Sunday, August 22, 1999
THE MIRACLE OF CASTEL DI SANGRO
By Joe McGinniss Little, Brown; 404 pages; $25
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One starts out Joe McGinniss' account of his year with a small-town Italian soccer club feeling sorry for the author for embarrassing himself with so meticulous a chronicle of his descent into sports-fan madness. One winds up feeling sorry for him that the year has to end.
McGinniss gave up the chance to write a book on O.J. so he could do ``The Miracle of Castel di Sangro'' instead. That must have been an easy decision, but still, it impresses the small-town Mafioso who runs the team in Castel di Sangro, which has somehow worked its way up to Serie B, the Triple-A of Italy's fanatical soccer world (the ``miracle'' of the title).
The Mafioso is trying to shake McGinniss down for a share of the book's profits, and McGinniss rebuffs him with a kind of feckless bravery that applies as well to his emotionally exhausted honesty in telling his tale.
As much as one might try to resist the pull of his story, especially when McGinniss is committing that ultimate fingers-on-the-chalkboard gaffe and using ``we'' to refer to the team, there's a freshness and fun that wins the reader over. Part of that is the cast of characters, sketched by McGinniss with a deep fondness and an eye for comic detail. The more humor, the more love, as when he describes the proprietor of Marcella's, where he and much of the team would eat twice every day. ``This,'' he notes, ``had far less to do with the quality of the food than with the quality of Marcella.''
Each of the players, and of course the bulldozerlike coach (whom McGinniss often tries to give advice -- only later seeing just how ludicrous this is), sooner or later comes alive in portraits that are so much fun, one can forgive McGinniss his love of long sentences:
``Flamboyantly handsome and proud as a peacock in the finest tradition of Rome, (Giacamo) Galli suffered from an uncontrollable head twitch, a tic which, when combined with his compulsion to run his hands constantly through his thick brown hair and an inability to either sit still or to keep from speaking for more than about thirty seconds at a time, caused me to suspect that his boyhood school days must have been less than tranquil,'' he writes.
McGinniss also proves a reliable guide to differences between life in America and in Italy. Love of soccer has brought him across the Atlantic, and he's serious about that love. He has not limped to Italy in the spirit of ``A Room With a View,'' desperate to catch a contact high from Italian-style exuberance and zest for living (see Oscars, Benigni). Yet he's not at all reluctant to fall in love with the place or see the good in Italian ways of doing things, even such simple traditions as everyone fighting for the check, again and again, all through the season.
``In the end, I'm sure, it came out as even as if everyone has insisted on separate checks, yet it was infinitely more entertaining and left all involved with a sense of well-being, rather than the spiritual cramps that come from counting too closely the change you put back in your pocket.''
That's not just delightful writing. It's a delicious put down of those who would let penny- counting rot their insides, and somehow it doesn't sound heavy-handed. That's the beauty of this book: Since the story of the soccer team's slow march through its against-all-odds season shapes the tale, the observations along the way have a kind of natural balance and perspective to them.
As the book and McGinniss' time in the Abruzzo draw to a close, ``grande Joe'' (as the players call him) heads home to America and his family, disillusioned and spiritually bruised but never for a second regretful.
``Each save I made produced a moment of unbounded glee,'' he writes of his one afternoon as an amateur goalie. ``Not that I didn't give up the odd goal as well, but for a 54-year-old American who'd never played the game, I think I could have done worse. At the end of the day, when, covered with dirt and with one leg scraped raw, I dived almost horizontally to my left to punch away a short-range rebound just before the final whistle blew, I think I might have experienced the last spontaneously perfect physical moment of my life.''
McGinniss will no doubt cherish his taste of George Plimpton-style participation, and there is never a question about his suffering along with the team during every match. (``At a good soccer match, you need oxygen at half time, not superfluous dog and pony acts,'' he writes.) He involves himself in every minute of every Castel di Sangro game with a kind of fervid intensity he insists no American sports fan could ever understand, and who wants to argue?
But mostly what stays with the reader is McGinniss' eye, and all the alert, engaged watching he does. He watches as the seasons change outside the window of his small, bone-cold apartment next door to the coach of the team. He watches as more and more signs of corruption force him to take a dark view of his beloved team's management.
McGinniss made his name with ``The Selling of the President,'' a book about Roger Ailes and Richard Nixon in 1968 that was ahead of its time. This latest effort in a long writing career is a departure for him, and it frees him to make repeated jokes at his own expense, to help Americans understand a true passion for soccer and, of course, to celebrate Italy with flavorful writing that recalls Peter Mayle before his Provence cottage industry got out of hand.
Mostly, though, the book offers a road map for letting go and plunging deep into a thrilling and terrifying obsession, even late in life, even if everyone thinks it insane. For that, ``grande Joe'' is as much a hero as any of the soccer players he befriends and brings alive in this gently astonishing book.
Steve Kettmann is a former Chronicle sportswriter.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi...
This article appeared on page RV - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Having a Ball in Italy
Author spends a year chronicling the fanatical world of a small-town soccer team
REVIEWED BY Steve Kettmann
Sunday, August 22, 1999
THE MIRACLE OF CASTEL DI SANGRO
By Joe McGinniss Little, Brown; 404 pages; $25
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One starts out Joe McGinniss' account of his year with a small-town Italian soccer club feeling sorry for the author for embarrassing himself with so meticulous a chronicle of his descent into sports-fan madness. One winds up feeling sorry for him that the year has to end.
McGinniss gave up the chance to write a book on O.J. so he could do ``The Miracle of Castel di Sangro'' instead. That must have been an easy decision, but still, it impresses the small-town Mafioso who runs the team in Castel di Sangro, which has somehow worked its way up to Serie B, the Triple-A of Italy's fanatical soccer world (the ``miracle'' of the title).
The Mafioso is trying to shake McGinniss down for a share of the book's profits, and McGinniss rebuffs him with a kind of feckless bravery that applies as well to his emotionally exhausted honesty in telling his tale.
As much as one might try to resist the pull of his story, especially when McGinniss is committing that ultimate fingers-on-the-chalkboard gaffe and using ``we'' to refer to the team, there's a freshness and fun that wins the reader over. Part of that is the cast of characters, sketched by McGinniss with a deep fondness and an eye for comic detail. The more humor, the more love, as when he describes the proprietor of Marcella's, where he and much of the team would eat twice every day. ``This,'' he notes, ``had far less to do with the quality of the food than with the quality of Marcella.''
Each of the players, and of course the bulldozerlike coach (whom McGinniss often tries to give advice -- only later seeing just how ludicrous this is), sooner or later comes alive in portraits that are so much fun, one can forgive McGinniss his love of long sentences:
``Flamboyantly handsome and proud as a peacock in the finest tradition of Rome, (Giacamo) Galli suffered from an uncontrollable head twitch, a tic which, when combined with his compulsion to run his hands constantly through his thick brown hair and an inability to either sit still or to keep from speaking for more than about thirty seconds at a time, caused me to suspect that his boyhood school days must have been less than tranquil,'' he writes.
McGinniss also proves a reliable guide to differences between life in America and in Italy. Love of soccer has brought him across the Atlantic, and he's serious about that love. He has not limped to Italy in the spirit of ``A Room With a View,'' desperate to catch a contact high from Italian-style exuberance and zest for living (see Oscars, Benigni). Yet he's not at all reluctant to fall in love with the place or see the good in Italian ways of doing things, even such simple traditions as everyone fighting for the check, again and again, all through the season.
``In the end, I'm sure, it came out as even as if everyone has insisted on separate checks, yet it was infinitely more entertaining and left all involved with a sense of well-being, rather than the spiritual cramps that come from counting too closely the change you put back in your pocket.''
That's not just delightful writing. It's a delicious put down of those who would let penny- counting rot their insides, and somehow it doesn't sound heavy-handed. That's the beauty of this book: Since the story of the soccer team's slow march through its against-all-odds season shapes the tale, the observations along the way have a kind of natural balance and perspective to them.
As the book and McGinniss' time in the Abruzzo draw to a close, ``grande Joe'' (as the players call him) heads home to America and his family, disillusioned and spiritually bruised but never for a second regretful.
``Each save I made produced a moment of unbounded glee,'' he writes of his one afternoon as an amateur goalie. ``Not that I didn't give up the odd goal as well, but for a 54-year-old American who'd never played the game, I think I could have done worse. At the end of the day, when, covered with dirt and with one leg scraped raw, I dived almost horizontally to my left to punch away a short-range rebound just before the final whistle blew, I think I might have experienced the last spontaneously perfect physical moment of my life.''
McGinniss will no doubt cherish his taste of George Plimpton-style participation, and there is never a question about his suffering along with the team during every match. (``At a good soccer match, you need oxygen at half time, not superfluous dog and pony acts,'' he writes.) He involves himself in every minute of every Castel di Sangro game with a kind of fervid intensity he insists no American sports fan could ever understand, and who wants to argue?
But mostly what stays with the reader is McGinniss' eye, and all the alert, engaged watching he does. He watches as the seasons change outside the window of his small, bone-cold apartment next door to the coach of the team. He watches as more and more signs of corruption force him to take a dark view of his beloved team's management.
McGinniss made his name with ``The Selling of the President,'' a book about Roger Ailes and Richard Nixon in 1968 that was ahead of its time. This latest effort in a long writing career is a departure for him, and it frees him to make repeated jokes at his own expense, to help Americans understand a true passion for soccer and, of course, to celebrate Italy with flavorful writing that recalls Peter Mayle before his Provence cottage industry got out of hand.
Mostly, though, the book offers a road map for letting go and plunging deep into a thrilling and terrifying obsession, even late in life, even if everyone thinks it insane. For that, ``grande Joe'' is as much a hero as any of the soccer players he befriends and brings alive in this gently astonishing book.
Steve Kettmann is a former Chronicle sportswriter.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi...
This article appeared on page RV - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle
March 2, 2015
Moving, Breathtaking, Tragic, Funny & Fascinating! A Great Read! I Loved It!
December 23, 2024
Up to about the halfway point I wasn't sure I wanted to keep going. I wasn't really invested in the book and I wasn't making time to read it. Many of the names didn't stick in my mind and there was an ordinary sameness to the story: relationships that felt superficial, game recaps with a passion I didn't share, occasional adversity that never felt interesting. Overall Part I of the book was okay but I needed something more. It all came together in Part II. Everything changed. I read the second half of the book in two sittings.
I'm not sure I'd recommend the book but I would say that if you start it you should finish it.
Note: Much of the dialogue is in Italian but the author helpfully lists the translation in the following sentences. No need to look up any words or phrases.
I'm not sure I'd recommend the book but I would say that if you start it you should finish it.
Note: Much of the dialogue is in Italian but the author helpfully lists the translation in the following sentences. No need to look up any words or phrases.
September 24, 2013
This book is great! Its hilarious how the coach and the maker of the team scraps a bunch of random people and make a soccer team. The author gives a vivid picture of the team so you get what he is talking about even though you dont know much soccer. Its funny because its a little soccer team from the poorest region of Italy, Castel di Sangro and they actually go to the national competition. His training techniques are strange too. When the team goes to a hotel, he purposely gets the rooms on the 4th floor even if there are no guests. This book gives a lot of laughter but at the end, there is some sadness with a shocking surprise. If you hate soccer, you still will like this.
January 8, 2010
A very interesting story given to me by a good friend. By the end, I really disliked the author and was ready to stop reading about him. Afterwards, I felt like he focused a lot of the book on negatives (in typical journalist fashion). And it didn't make me feel proud of being Italian. So not one I'd recommend.
October 5, 2017
Joe McGinniss proslul jako autor true crime reportáží, knih jdoucích po zákulisí financování politických kampaní apod. A tak u titulu mapující jednu sezónu "italského zázraku", který v průběhu konce osmdesátek a devadesátek vystoupal z nejvíc pralesní ligy až do Serie B jako tým z nejmenšího "skoro už města" v historii (a to bez rozpočtu či adekvátního kádru), bych čekal seriózní pohled do zákulisí mafiánem vedeného klubu a jaký dopad má tento "zázrak" na obyvatele. Nic však nemůže být vzdálenějšího pravdě.
On to totiž pojal humorně ve stylu Hornbyho a místy skoro až montypythonovských absurdních situací. Ano, rámcově se ty jeho historky staly, zdejší postavičky také mají reálné předobrazy. Jen je vše přepáleno ad absurdum, ovšem napsáno s viditelnou láskou k fotbalu, rázovitost zapadlého italského regionu a života tak nějak celkově.
Jako reportážní kniha to neobstojí, byť jí to nesporně je, jako humoristické čtivo na pláž to naopak zabaví nebývale. Protože to nesporně je nemálo vtipné, především v pasážích autor (zde stylizován do echt naivního do všeho nadšeného Amíka aneb reportéra co neumí kváknout italsky v regionu, kde nikdo neumí půlslova anglicky) versus do extrému vyhnaná italská/vesnická/fotbalová specifika plná Camorry, svérázných postaviček či vášni ke kulatému nesmyslu jdoucí až za hrob. Jen to nemuselo být tak dlouhé a z pohledu Evropana ne(s)mělo být vysvětlování všeho okolo fotbalu tak zevrubné, ale zároveň jak pro simplicitní prvňáčky.
On to totiž pojal humorně ve stylu Hornbyho a místy skoro až montypythonovských absurdních situací. Ano, rámcově se ty jeho historky staly, zdejší postavičky také mají reálné předobrazy. Jen je vše přepáleno ad absurdum, ovšem napsáno s viditelnou láskou k fotbalu, rázovitost zapadlého italského regionu a života tak nějak celkově.
Jako reportážní kniha to neobstojí, byť jí to nesporně je, jako humoristické čtivo na pláž to naopak zabaví nebývale. Protože to nesporně je nemálo vtipné, především v pasážích autor (zde stylizován do echt naivního do všeho nadšeného Amíka aneb reportéra co neumí kváknout italsky v regionu, kde nikdo neumí půlslova anglicky) versus do extrému vyhnaná italská/vesnická/fotbalová specifika plná Camorry, svérázných postaviček či vášni ke kulatému nesmyslu jdoucí až za hrob. Jen to nemuselo být tak dlouhé a z pohledu Evropana ne(s)mělo být vysvětlování všeho okolo fotbalu tak zevrubné, ale zároveň jak pro simplicitní prvňáčky.
May 24, 2024
I appreciate this rating puts me in a minority but I hated this book, more particularly I hated the author. Arrogant, opinionated, ignorant, totally lacking in any self awareness, from the start Italians are treated as some sort of stereotypical lower level pets and when they don’t live up to his “standards” he gives them the benefit of his advice whether on team tactics and selection (despite having never played or coached the game at any level) or moral dilemmas. I’m pretty sure an Italian turning up at a baseball team and shouting at the coach that his selection and tactics were all wrong would get short thrift. And it’s not as if US sport is immune from controversy.
By the end I felt like screaming “ITS NOT YOUR TEAM, YOUR TOWN OR YOUR COUNTRY!! SHUT UP OR F OFF”.
Frankly he did well not to have been clocked.
By the end I felt like screaming “ITS NOT YOUR TEAM, YOUR TOWN OR YOUR COUNTRY!! SHUT UP OR F OFF”.
Frankly he did well not to have been clocked.
April 6, 2024
I think this was a great story that the author inserted himself into entirely too much. There’s so much magic in soccer, with entire towns and cities rallying behind clubs as they climb up the pyramid. And this is as unlikely as those climbs come, and I would’ve liked to read more about that than the author just vacationing to Italy and arguing with a manager about tactics and inserting himself into the fabric of the club.
May 19, 2023
Football has changed much since this was written. What likely once came off as daring and proud now reads pompous, cocky, and ironic. We now know America's place in the game. We know the fan's place in the game. Both are humble positions. This narrative is not humble. It often made me cringe. It is exciting to read about real players and matches that we haven't likely heard of before, but it got too granular. The relationships were the story - not the matches. With all the matches, it made for a long read.
January 30, 2018
A great combination of sport, story telling, and an American’s view of Italy. Very much enjoyed reading this and thank Nicolai for the recommendation
April 10, 2020
Great read. Joe McGinniss is an absolute lunatic, who understands absolutely nothing of Italian Culture or football but never lets that stop him.
February 16, 2025
Me resulta difícil pensar en que se pueda contar una historia de fútbol mejor que esta. Increíble libro. Siempre me quedará la espina de no haber podido comerme una pizza con los ragazzi donde Marcella…
January 27, 2018
"Il guaio con te, Joe, e che sai rispondere a tutte le domande anche sei non sai proprio niente."
"Joe, the trouble with you is that you knows everything. But in the same times you knows nothing that you talks about."
The above quotes, the first in Italian by Mister Jaconi, the coach of the team, and the following English translation by a young player on the team, may as well have been the title of the book. Author, Joe McGinniss falls in love with soccer in his 50's after watching the 1994 World Cup and ends up visiting Italy to spend a year with a minor league team turned professional. The biggest conflicts that arrive does not occur as a result of the team barely being professional or the corruption that surrounds them. It occurs because of how naive Joe McGinniss seems to be for an entire season with this squad. He loves the sport and loves the team, but somehow begins to think that he has enough knowledge to challenge the coach of the team. His biggest disappointments right up to the end of it all, come from his fairy tale views of how this team and sport should be and the reality of what their life entails.
The book still gets 4 stars from me though because I simply could not put it down. It had a lot of charm and being a true story, the moments really felt alive. There's heartache, comedy, drama and everything else you could possible imagine wrapped into this well written book. I was left wondering what happened to everyone in the book but thankfully quick searches on google actually do reveal a lot. Despite the author's behavior, this was a story worth telling and it really was a miraculous one. It would have been very hard not to fall in love with this rag tag group of players from rural Italy that achieved the impossible.
My biggest disappointments all involved the author, who did do a splendid job of writing the book. These people allowed him into their lives for close to a year and there's very few people that escape harsh words from him when it was all said and done. Whether he was calling 1 player simple or making light about another watching his wedding tape while missing his ailing wife, he seemed to spare very few of these people with his words. In the end he joined them for a roller coaster ride and was left disappointed by being exposed to a little too much. Then his response was to degrade the players that had let him into their lives, even though it is made clear that there isn't much choice in some of the things they do.
I believe most people will enjoy this book if they read it and I am happy that I finally got around to it. I especially recommend it if you're a sports fan, soccer fan or just a fan of non-fiction.
"Joe, the trouble with you is that you knows everything. But in the same times you knows nothing that you talks about."
The above quotes, the first in Italian by Mister Jaconi, the coach of the team, and the following English translation by a young player on the team, may as well have been the title of the book. Author, Joe McGinniss falls in love with soccer in his 50's after watching the 1994 World Cup and ends up visiting Italy to spend a year with a minor league team turned professional. The biggest conflicts that arrive does not occur as a result of the team barely being professional or the corruption that surrounds them. It occurs because of how naive Joe McGinniss seems to be for an entire season with this squad. He loves the sport and loves the team, but somehow begins to think that he has enough knowledge to challenge the coach of the team. His biggest disappointments right up to the end of it all, come from his fairy tale views of how this team and sport should be and the reality of what their life entails.
The book still gets 4 stars from me though because I simply could not put it down. It had a lot of charm and being a true story, the moments really felt alive. There's heartache, comedy, drama and everything else you could possible imagine wrapped into this well written book. I was left wondering what happened to everyone in the book but thankfully quick searches on google actually do reveal a lot. Despite the author's behavior, this was a story worth telling and it really was a miraculous one. It would have been very hard not to fall in love with this rag tag group of players from rural Italy that achieved the impossible.
My biggest disappointments all involved the author, who did do a splendid job of writing the book. These people allowed him into their lives for close to a year and there's very few people that escape harsh words from him when it was all said and done. Whether he was calling 1 player simple or making light about another watching his wedding tape while missing his ailing wife, he seemed to spare very few of these people with his words. In the end he joined them for a roller coaster ride and was left disappointed by being exposed to a little too much. Then his response was to degrade the players that had let him into their lives, even though it is made clear that there isn't much choice in some of the things they do.
I believe most people will enjoy this book if they read it and I am happy that I finally got around to it. I especially recommend it if you're a sports fan, soccer fan or just a fan of non-fiction.
Read
October 31, 2016A very entertaining book. The Author tries to give an honest account of his season with Italy's football club Caste di Sangro, who were miraculously peomoted to serie A in the nineties. The slight problem is that McGinnis does not really understand football (and keeps calling it socccer, unfortunately) or the culture around football. His outlook is so very American, it's sometimes like he thinks the serie A is governed like the NFL or NBA.
His naivete is charming at times. Like when he thinks he has any influence on the coach and his decision who to put in the line-up for a game. But it becomes a bit unbelievable in the end.
All this being said, you do start rooting for the Castel di Sangro team as the book progresses. The climax in the last games of the season is exciting. And it doesn't end there...
His naivete is charming at times. Like when he thinks he has any influence on the coach and his decision who to put in the line-up for a game. But it becomes a bit unbelievable in the end.
All this being said, you do start rooting for the Castel di Sangro team as the book progresses. The climax in the last games of the season is exciting. And it doesn't end there...
February 16, 2018
**From the shelf of Dr. Davide J.**
I’m shocked at the amount of cojones Joe McGinniss demonstrates when finding out that “maletines” exist in soccer.
Overall this just makes a young 29 year old want to move to Lecco and document the life of a semi-pro biking team even more. Fun read on Italian culture, new curse words to be used when needed, and some much needed lessons on The Boot’s geography.
I’m shocked at the amount of cojones Joe McGinniss demonstrates when finding out that “maletines” exist in soccer.
Overall this just makes a young 29 year old want to move to Lecco and document the life of a semi-pro biking team even more. Fun read on Italian culture, new curse words to be used when needed, and some much needed lessons on The Boot’s geography.
April 12, 2013
A fascinating peek into the intersection of sport and small-town Italian culture! SO many things about the bizarro nature of football in Italy are explained in the microcosm of Castel di Sangro - and the author's increasingly unhinged personal involvement in the story made it completely unputdownable.
July 6, 2010
This book, about a third rate Italian soccer team, trying to make into the big leagues after a winning streak, is a good "underdog" story. Written by an American, who follows the team throughout Italy, it has fun cultural tidbits.
February 29, 2012
Sometimes, when you finish a really good book, you're kind of sad it over. That's what happened to me. But, luckily, with books, unlike maybe anything else in life, you can be 100% sure that another book, just as good, is somewhere on the horizon.
July 16, 2009
Excellent story of a Serie B team and life as a Italian Soccer player in a small town.
June 9, 2014
One of my favorite reads of all time. Mr. McGinness tells the tale of a small town Italian football team who over achieves in the tough world of Italian football.
November 9, 2020
Visiškas masterpiece`as! Aš nežinau, ar knyga būtų įdomi tam, kas futbolu nesidomi visiškai, visiškai, bet bet kuris, bent karts nuo karto įsijungiantis daugiau nei Čempionų lygos finalą, turėtų perskaityti šią knygą. Jeigu per gyvenimą skaitysi tik vieną knygą apie futbolą - tai turi būti ši.
Amerikietis rašytojas, iki tol garsėjęs politinėmis knygomis ir kriminaliniais trileriais, ne tik įsimyli futbolą (europietišką), bet ir įsiprašo sezonui į komandą, kuri ką tik sudrebino Italijos futbolą. Sudrebino ne bet kaip, o nuo visiškai mėgėjiško lygio per keletą sezonų įšokusi į Serie B - tebūnie antrą Italijos divizioną, tačiau pilnai profesionalų lygį. Reikia atsiminti ir tai, kad dešimtam XX a. dešimtmetyje Siere A buvo buvo neabejotinai turtingiausia ir geriausia lyga pasaulyje.
Castel di Sangro - vos 5k miestelis Italijoje. Net Lietuvos mastais tai mažas miestelis. Aišku, autoriui labai pasiseka, kad stebuklą sukūrusi komanda yra tokia. Ne nuobodi kaimo komandėlė, kurioje viskas absoliučiai gerai, o tokia, kokia čia aprašyta. Paslaptingas mafiozas savininkas, kurio visi aiškiai bijo, suktas ir korupcinis klubo vadovas, ekscentriškas treneris, įdomaus charakterio ir istorijų žaidėjai, o kur dar per sezoną nutikę įvykiai, skandalai ir net tragedijos.
Nesinori per daug aprašyti, kad neatimčiau iš kitų skaitymo malonumo, tačiau pasakysiu, kad tik skirtingų ir tikrai didelių, svarbių, skaudžių ir įsimintinų įvykių aplink vieną komandą per 9 mėnesius nutinka tikrai ne visada. O kur dar visus varžtus išmušanti pabaiga.
Gaila, kad knyga apie jau gana senus įvykius, tad internete sunkiau rasti originalios to laiko informacijos. Autorius jau miręs, bet bandysiu ieškoti gal kur yra kokių interviu ir aprašymų, kas buvo vėliau. Turėtų būti tikrai įdomių dalykų. Įdomu ir tai, kad Joe McGinniss prie rašymo apie sportą taip ir nesugrįžo.
Amerikietis rašytojas, iki tol garsėjęs politinėmis knygomis ir kriminaliniais trileriais, ne tik įsimyli futbolą (europietišką), bet ir įsiprašo sezonui į komandą, kuri ką tik sudrebino Italijos futbolą. Sudrebino ne bet kaip, o nuo visiškai mėgėjiško lygio per keletą sezonų įšokusi į Serie B - tebūnie antrą Italijos divizioną, tačiau pilnai profesionalų lygį. Reikia atsiminti ir tai, kad dešimtam XX a. dešimtmetyje Siere A buvo buvo neabejotinai turtingiausia ir geriausia lyga pasaulyje.
Castel di Sangro - vos 5k miestelis Italijoje. Net Lietuvos mastais tai mažas miestelis. Aišku, autoriui labai pasiseka, kad stebuklą sukūrusi komanda yra tokia. Ne nuobodi kaimo komandėlė, kurioje viskas absoliučiai gerai, o tokia, kokia čia aprašyta. Paslaptingas mafiozas savininkas, kurio visi aiškiai bijo, suktas ir korupcinis klubo vadovas, ekscentriškas treneris, įdomaus charakterio ir istorijų žaidėjai, o kur dar per sezoną nutikę įvykiai, skandalai ir net tragedijos.
Nesinori per daug aprašyti, kad neatimčiau iš kitų skaitymo malonumo, tačiau pasakysiu, kad tik skirtingų ir tikrai didelių, svarbių, skaudžių ir įsimintinų įvykių aplink vieną komandą per 9 mėnesius nutinka tikrai ne visada. O kur dar visus varžtus išmušanti pabaiga.
Gaila, kad knyga apie jau gana senus įvykius, tad internete sunkiau rasti originalios to laiko informacijos. Autorius jau miręs, bet bandysiu ieškoti gal kur yra kokių interviu ir aprašymų, kas buvo vėliau. Turėtų būti tikrai įdomių dalykų. Įdomu ir tai, kad Joe McGinniss prie rašymo apie sportą taip ir nesugrįžo.
May 2, 2023
I really enjoyed this, I think this book did the impossible: convince me to care about a sport.
Apart from giving me a new ridiculous insult that I'm eager to find a chance to use (you have the heart of a lion, but the legs of a piano) I really found this story so inspiring and fun.
The only bad part is that Joe McGinniss must have been really annoying to Jaconi. I know Jaconi seemed like a jerk, but he was the coach and had been a coach for many years. McGinniss is an author who has only been a soccer fan for a few years at this point. It was really inappropriate for him to do sooooo much backseat coaching, to the point where I felt secondhand embarrassment everytime he approached Jaconi to give him 'advice'. On top of that, the weird photo copies of newspaper articles with insulting letters written on top that he delivered to the people he was insulting??? I guess McGinniss has guts but I think this was just not a smart move..
I dont want to end my review on a bad note, because overall I found this book interesting and engaging, despite not caring about soccer at all. Very interesting insight into the Italian professional soccer levels.
Apart from giving me a new ridiculous insult that I'm eager to find a chance to use (you have the heart of a lion, but the legs of a piano) I really found this story so inspiring and fun.
The only bad part is that Joe McGinniss must have been really annoying to Jaconi. I know Jaconi seemed like a jerk, but he was the coach and had been a coach for many years. McGinniss is an author who has only been a soccer fan for a few years at this point. It was really inappropriate for him to do sooooo much backseat coaching, to the point where I felt secondhand embarrassment everytime he approached Jaconi to give him 'advice'. On top of that, the weird photo copies of newspaper articles with insulting letters written on top that he delivered to the people he was insulting??? I guess McGinniss has guts but I think this was just not a smart move..
I dont want to end my review on a bad note, because overall I found this book interesting and engaging, despite not caring about soccer at all. Very interesting insight into the Italian professional soccer levels.
May 1, 2025
I haven’t written a review in so long, I’m so sorry. This review, is not however, all that coherent. This is perhaps one of the greatest books I’ve read. I was initially skeptical of this book because McGinnis wrote dialogue (in a memoir??) with Italians verbatim, which felt rather insensitive. That being said, as McGinnis’ Italian improved, the insensitivity was less severe. Overall, however, this book says everything I have ever tried to say about the role soccer plays in my life. It was a beautiful exploration of the ultimate sicko—a man willing to leave behind his family for a year to follow a rural second division club. There will never be another book that captures the way soccer can be so motivating in periods of extreme loneliness.
P.S. this is such an interesting book to read 26 years after publication when one of the “villains” is now president of Italian football and a UEFA vice president. Maybe European football believes in the reformation of an individual’s character or they just don’t check into their past at all.
P.S. this is such an interesting book to read 26 years after publication when one of the “villains” is now president of Italian football and a UEFA vice president. Maybe European football believes in the reformation of an individual’s character or they just don’t check into their past at all.
May 31, 2026
Does a great job of capturing both the Italian lower leagues and also the fact that Americans just don't quite seem to quite get football. McGinnis has a pretty decent crack at it tbf
Also why so often in these kind of books do the glossy picture sections in the slapbang MIDDLE of the book have spoilers in them!?
Also why so often in these kind of books do the glossy picture sections in the slapbang MIDDLE of the book have spoilers in them!?
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