World Cup Fever

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024<BR><BR>A Waterstones Best History Book of 2024 Pick <BR><BR>'Kuper is a shrewd observer [in] this entertaining mix of memoir and anthropology' The Sunday Times<BR><BR>From the bestselling author of Chums comes an explorer's tale of a naïf getting to understand a complex, glittering, beautiful and often cruel city.<BR><BR> Simon Kuper has experienced Paris both as a human being and as a journalist. He has grown middle-aged there, eaten the croissants, taken his children to countless football matches on freezing Saturday mornings in the city's notorious banlieues, and in 2015 lived through two terrorist attacks on his family's neighbourhood. Over two decades of becoming something of a cantankerous Parisian himself, Kuper has watched the city change.<BR><BR> This century, Paris has globalised, gentrified, and been shocked into realising its role as the crucible of civilisational conflict. Sometimes it's a multicultural paradise, and sometimes it isn't. This decade, Parisians have lived through a sequence of shocks: terrorist attacks, record floods and heatwaves, the burning of Notre Dame, the storming of the city by gilets jaunes, and the pandemic. Now, as the Olympics come to town, France is busy executing the 'Grand Paris' project: the most serious attempt yet to knit together the bejewelled city with its neglected suburbs.<BR><BR> This is a captivating memoir of today's Paris without the clichés.

Seit 1990 hat Simon Kuper keine Fußball-Weltmeisterschaftausgelassen, er war bei allen neun Turnieren vor Ort und hat seine Beobachtungen in 25 Notizbüchern festgehalten. Dabei legt er den Fokus nicht auf 1:0-Berichterstattung, sondern auf die vielen abseitigen Geschichten rund um das größte Fußballfest der Erde. So erfährt der Leser etwa, weshalb die deutsche Mannschaft ihren Bösewicht-Status als "Darth Vader" der WM verlor, wie ein Indigenen-Stamm mit dem 1:7-Desaster Brasiliens umging und auch, warum der Autor von der WM 1998 in Frankreich dermaßen begeistert war, dass er seinen topdotierten Job in London kündigte und spontan nach Paris umzog.- Das einzigartige Buch zur WMin den USA, Kanada und Mexiko vom vielfach ausgezeichneten Simon Kuper- Keine 08/15-Erlebnisse, sondern Hintergründiges, Abseitiges, Literarischeszum größten Fußballereignis der Welt- Insider-Wissen & große Erfahrung: Der Autor war seit 1990 bei jeder WM live dabei 

Now with a new chapter on the end of the chumocracy era - and Oxford's upcoming elite for 2050.<BR><BR>THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2022<BR><BR>A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BEST BOOK OF 2023<BR><BR>Power. Privilege. Parties.<BR>It's a very small world at the top.<BR><BR>'Brilliant ... traces Brexit back to the debating chambers of the Oxford Union in the 1980s' James O'Brien<BR><BR>'A searing onslaught on the smirking Oxford insinuation that politics is all just a game. It isn't. It matters' Matthew Parris<BR><BR>'A sparkling firework of a book' Lynn Barber, Spectator<BR><BR>'Exquisite and depressing in equal measure' Matthew Syed, Sunday Times<BR><BR>Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Dominic Cummings, Daniel Hannan, Jacob Rees-Mogg: Whitehall is swarming with old Oxonians. They debated each other in tutorials, ran against each other in student elections, and attended the same balls and black tie dinners. <BR><BR>They aren't just colleagues - they are peers, rivals, friends. And, when they walked out of the world of student debates onto the national stage, they brought their university politics with them.<BR><BR>Thirteen of the seventeen postwar British prime ministers went to Oxford University. In Chums, Simon Kuper traces how the rarefied and privileged atmosphere of this narrowest of talent pools - and the friendships and worldviews it created - shaped modern Britain. <BR><BR>A damning look at the university clique-turned-Commons majority that will blow the doors of Westminster wide open and change the way you look at our democracy forever.

Autor Simon Kuper erzählt in diesem preisgekrönten Buch, wie der FC Barcelona zum erfolgreichsten Fußballverein der Welt aufstieg. Wie es Verantwortliche und Spieler in den letzten 40 Jahren schafften, aus einem katalanischen Fußballverein eine globale Marke und ein soziales, kulturelles und politisches Phänomen zu formen.Kuper beschreibt die Arbeit der Trainer, Mediziner, Datenanalysten und Ernährungswissenschaftler, die die Sportwelt revolutioniert haben. Und er untersucht den überragenden Einfluss der beiden größten Legenden des Vereins, Johan Cruyff und Lionel Messi. Und wie Lamine Yamal und der deutsche Trainer Hansi Flick den erfolgreichen Weg weiter beschreiten. Hierfür erhielt Kuper beispiellosen Zugang hinter die Kulissen des Vereins und zu den Menschen, die dort arbeiten.

A Sports Book of the Year in the Irish Times, the FT and the Mail on Sunday<BR><BR>'Kuper is one of the best sportswriters in the English language today' New Yorker<BR><BR>'Unmissable ... The ultimate book for anyone who loves football' Mail on Sunday<BR><BR>'A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle... an essential companion' David Goldblatt <BR><BR>It's the biggest competition on Earth. A four-yearly chance for the world's greatest footballers to realise their ultimate dream. A month-long media spectacle that's watched by billions. <BR><BR>The World Cup has changed beyond recognition since the early days, when the players were semi-pros and the trophy went missing. Today, it's a corporate-led bonanza of dark money and dubious ethics. Simon Kuper, bestselling author of Barça, reflects on every tournament since Italia 90 to reveal a captivating portrait of sport in a globalised world. Entertaining and compelling, World Cup Fever is the definitive story of football's greatest drama, and of how the tournament can touch - and even change - our lives.

A Sports Book of the Year in the Irish Times, the FT and the Mail on Sunday<BR><BR>'The ultimate book for anyone who loves football, and plenty who don't ... Unmissable' Mail on Sunday<BR><BR>'Kuper is a wry and sharp-eyed guide' New Statesman<BR><BR>'A brilliant evocation of the joy of the football carnival and the absurdities of the global spectacle... an essential companion' David Goldblatt <BR><BR>It's the biggest sporting competition on Earth. A four-yearly chance for our greatest footballers to realise their ultimate dream. A month-long spectacle that's watched by billions. But the inaugural World Cup, held in Uruguay in 1930, was semi-professional, poorly attended and haphazardly organised - so how did it become a bonanza of multinational sponsorship, dubious ethics and shadowy characters, and the ultimate stage for football's greatest drama?<BR><BR>Simon Kuper is one of very few people to have attended every World Cup since 1990. In World Cup Fever he looks back at each tournament he's experienced - from half-empty stands at Italia 90 to the French triumph as hosts in 1998, South Africa's national dream in 2010 and the troubling legacy of 2022 - to reveal a captivating portrait of sport in a globalised world. <BR><BR>World Cup Fever is the story of how the tournament touches and sometimes even changes our lives, by one of the best writers on the beautiful game.