There are many dreams in the beautiful game, but none bigger than the FIFA World Cup. Every four years, dreamers set their sights on the game’s biggest prize: to play in and win the World Cup. Everyone starts at the same point at the beginning of qualification: there are no guarantees and no promises. Everyone has a chance.
So you can imagine that this dream causes players to risk everything for their chance to be in the spotlight, even it is for only 90 minutes. When they step on the field for their first game, they have the same chance as the Brazils or Spains or Englands of the world. Just like Willy Wonka’s golden ticket, qualification is an opportunity to be one of the chosen few or 32 in this case. From Africa to the Caribbean and the Middle East, tiny nations put out their big dreams against even bigger odds. Most of them don’t find their dreams realized, but that doesn’t keep them from trying.
Thirty-One Nil: On the Road with Football’s Outsiders: A World Cup Odyssey has a little bit of everything. First impressions make us think that James Montague is the Buzz Bissinger of soccer writing. This book is the Travel Channel converging with the beautiful game. The result is a timeless set of stories that capture what the sport is all about, the true spirit of the game.
Montague is obviously a gifted author and probably one of only a handful that could pull this off. Telling many different tales, all with the same theme, a common thread.
This book is relevant now, this summer with the Women’s World Cup, and beyond. It is a dream not likely to ever go away. It’s about stripping the sport down to its core and the amazing journey that surrounds it.
You’ll journey to many different places to meet the players for Palestine, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Antigua and Barbuda. Montague portrays their struggles in a humanistic manner, showing how their dreams keep a glimmer of hope alive. Maintaining any sense of hope in some of these locations is an incredible challenge.
This has a Friday Night Lights quality to it, but the absence of a happy ending in many cases is a lot to swallow. You won’t see any of these “football minnows” lifting the World Cup or even signing a multi-million dollar deal in Europe. The process of qualifying for the World Cup is just a brief reprieve from the difficulties of everyday life.
It’s an incredible title and one that you won’t want to put down. It emerges as one of our favorites of the year, well-done in every regard. It gives a voice to the voiceless and shows why the beautiful game is indeed so beautiful.
