The ESPN World Cup Companion

"Yes, though told in a quirky way, which is the character of one of the authors, David Hirshey. But what I was looking for there, to be honest, was I’ve been so maverick in my choice of books, and certainly if I was an American, and the World Cup is on and for about one month America understands soccer, I need a book that tells me something, that helps me through the tournament. And this book probably does it better than the book that’s the real bible, Brian Glanville’s The Story of the World Cup . Because this World Cup comes at a time when the United States media has started reflecting the expansion of soccer in America , it needs a book that copiously explains to Americans the global aspects of the sport. Hirshey and Bennett appear indefatigable in reading everything, watching everything, and cramming everything into one compendium of the 80-year-old phenomenon, the World Cup. In Hirshey’s case, the thirst for knowledge was handed down by his late father’s latent European lifelong love of the game as an Arsenal fan in exile in New York City. The Companion is pacy, passionate, unsparing in detail, and, so far as I know, accurate."