Was the pre-World Cup flood of football books actually smaller than usual? Or did you just not feel it because, as a fan and reader, you didn’t really feel like reading morally valuable non-fiction books like “Qatar. Sand, Money and Games” to rush in? A joker puts us in a good, nostalgic, escapist World Cup mood now, shortly before kick-off: It’s Olivier Guez with his football book “Lob des Dribbelns”.
If the Parisian journalist and writer demonstrated with his novel about “The Disappearance of Doctor Mengele” (2018) how courageously a French libero can act on the place of the non-persons of German history, his new work is a reminder of how powerful the first excessively watched and the World Cup filled with Panini albums continues to have an effect as an initiation in every fan biography: “The aficionado remembers the shock of his first World Cup, which was to remain the best of his life forever.” For eleven-year-old Guez it was Spain in 1982. Then he dreamed about it Latin America, “in Zico’s Brazil, in Maradona’s Argentina or in Cubillas’ Peru, later also in Francescholis Uruguay”. Many years later, Guez toured South America. As a writer, he is concerned that his literary idols Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar knew nothing about football. He traces South American player types (not only in sports).
There was the sly malandro in Brazil, “a dander and provocateur, a social dribbler”, as embodied to perfection by the “crooked-legged angel” Garrincha. Or el pibe in Argentina, which can only be translated with the word Bengel, which has gone out of fashion in German, a “cunning, individualistic fellow” who – blessed with the talent of a Maradona – traded as el pibe de oro, urchin with the gold feet.
In general, Maradona – whole sections of this book are dedicated to him, which can also be read as an obituary for an era: “You could be small and plump and still be the best footballer in history.” Today, according to Guez, there is a trend towards physical and mental hyper-perfection a kind of cyborg football. And: “Too much football destroys football”. Guez fears that “the animal will be bled dry to the last drop. It’s a pity: we loved football so much.” Bet that “we” still love it after Qatar? This book helps.
Olivier Guez: In praise of dribbling. About the myth of South American football. Translated from the French by Nicola Denis. Structure, 176 pages, 18 euros.
