Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

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Jonathan Wilson's INVERTING THE PYRAMID won the National Sporting Club Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. His other books include BEHIND THE CURTAIN: Travels in Eastern European Football; SUNDERLAND: A Club Transformed; THE ANATOMY OF ENGLAND: A History in Ten Matches; NOBODY EVER SAYS THANK YOU, a critically acclaimed biography of Brian Clough; THE OUTSIDER: A History of the Goalkeeper; and THE ANATOMY OF LIVERPOOL. He also writes for The Guardian, Sports Illustrated, and World Soccer, and he is the editor of The Blizzard. This book offers a great deal of insight into the development of Argentinian domestic football, which was originally started off by English and Italians, as well as that of the national side. For my taste, the domestic stuff was a little overdetailed, with too many descriptions of obscure games/players that held little meaning for me, although the excellent research was evident. This all builds up a great picture of the footballing culture, however, as one that has always been riven by the desire to win by romantic individualist skills (the gambeta dribbling tradition) against the fear of losing and humiliation (especially by organised European teams), as particularly shown by the national side itself.

Angels with Dirty Faces | James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart Angels with Dirty Faces | James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart

Il y a beaucoup beaucoup beaucoup de choses qui y sont discutées du système carcéral américain aux agressions sexuelles et les processus de justice réparatrice/transformatrice qui ne sont pas toujours le nirvana de ce qu'on attend d'eux. It is impressive not only the knowledge, but the level the accuracy and understanding of local issues that Mr. Wilson shows. Rattín was, without question, one of the great moaners of the 60s, forever pleading with referees,” Jonathan Wilson writes in Angels with Dirty Faces, his new history of Argentinian football. “On this occasion he seems to have been relatively restrained.” But those English fans who were watching, either in the stadium or on television, will remember the sense of disbelief that a sportsman could bring a match to a standstill by refusing to accept the rule of authority.

No cabe duda de que, como bien dice la portada del libro, “quien ama el fútbol ama a Argentina”. En esta Copa del Mundo de Catar 2022 en el que el fútbol se ha homogeneizado hasta el grado en el que las distinciones tácticas son prácticamente inexistentes y en una ola de anti-argentinismo los aficionados pretenden que se tiene que reaccionar con la compostura de los equipos ingleses del Siglo XIX, es fresco ver a una selección albiceleste que se destaque por sus individualidades, por su picardía y por su singular sentido de emoción. Leyendo a Wilson, es posible darse cuenta porque la celebración de un Messi que evoca a Riquelme enfrente de Louis Van Gaal reivindica toda una tradición futbolística. This book is fractured and non-linear which takes the reader on a frustrating path with no clear solution. Although it was Imarisha’s intention to show they reader the grays in the world and to show the complex nature of what punishments and forgiveness look like, I am still left wanting more. Wilson says ‘I wanted to include the theory and place the sport in its social, economic and political context, and I wanted to include the people, the players and coaches whose lives are so remarkable that they seem to have fallen from a magic-realist novel, but I didn’t want to stint on the football, on the games and the goals that actually make us watch in the first place, on the culture that provides the currency in which so much of Argentinian life is transacted. But while this is primarily a history of football, so entwined are the political and socio-economic strands, so inextricably is football bound up with all public life, that this is also a book about Argentina’. While this might have seemed over-ambitious were he writing about any other country, Argentina has seen such an inter-mingling of football and politics that it would perhaps be impossible to fully tell the story of one without the other. And, as the early sections of the book make clear, football was integral to the early myth-making of a country still trying to form an identity having only gained independence in the 19th Century. Football was first imported to Argentina, as elsewhere, by British immigrants, and Wilson gives prominence to Glaswegian schoolteacher Alexander Watson Hutton in organising structured games which led to the formation of a league in 1891 (making it the oldest football league outside Britain). Yet, with the country’s population growing rapidly through immigration from Italy and Spain, by the early 20th Century football had established itself as the game of ‘the people’ rather than a reminder of home for British expats.

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King, Darryn. "Inside the Making of Home Alone’s Fake Gangster Movie", Vanity Fair, published December 22, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2016. p. xii: "From the very beginning, Argentina, the land of silver, was a myth, an ideal to which the reality count not possibly conform." Alas, such is brief when it comes to the overall landscape of unfulfilled dreams. The almost laughable repulsion to be exposed on the international stage in the 40s and 50s before undergoing a shameful exit in Sweden on their return before Menotti finally oversaw glory with the 70s team and was succeeded as a herald by Maradona before returning to the status quo in the 90s. p. 201: "Throughout the tournament, the magazine had shown startling disdain for the other nations. The Dutch, for instance, were explicitly linked with drugs, homosexuality, and excess and Scots with alcohol."

Coscia, Elizabeth. "Sing Sing Correctional Facility Plans Dark Museum", Observer, published June 23, 2014. Retrieved December 12, 2015. p. 8: "Alumni were the last of the great Anglo-Argentinian sides, insisting that their aim was to uphold "British value" as much as it was to win and to 'play well without passion.'" Difficult as it is to pit passionate countries against each other, Argentina would hold up its own in beautiful godhood. Footballers emerged as royalty from the country, and then had to abandon the same for the luxuries and temptations of Europe. This has to be the most comprehensive book of Argentine footballing history out there. It was wonderful to recall my own knowledge of Argentine history and identity and learn how they are both completely intertwined with football. Wilson points out how distinctly Argentine traditions like tango and ‘Martín Fierro’/gaucho culture are entrenched in the footballing style and evolution of Argentina, a country with an unfortunately fraught history full of corruption, disillusionment, and economic turmoil, where “when the present is such a disappointment, there is always the past” (xv).