Futebol Nation: A Footballing History Of Brazil

David Goldblatt’s tremendous new book may be carefully timed, but it is no World Cup cash-in. In eight roughly chronological chapters he explores football’s increasingly central influence in Brazilian history, culture, and sense of self, from its post-colonial inception among an urban elite keen for a European veneer, and on through the rapidly changing socio-political landscape of the 20th century.

Focused less on events of the pitch themselves than their direct relation to those of the stands, city streets, and Presidential offices, Goldblatt excels in the content itself and his research.

From the football-centred search for multicultural Brasilidade (’Brazilianness’) of the first half of the 20th century, to the military dictatorship and rising violence and systemic corruption of its later decades the narrative is compelling and lucidly written.