Thirty-One Nil, by James Montague
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Your support makes all the difference.They've kicked off in Brazil, but spare a thought for those teams who failed, sometimes by agonisingly narrow margins, to qualify for this year's World Cup. As the title of this eye-witness account of many of those struggles indicates, margins haven't always been narrow; 31-0 was the record score by which Australia beat American Samoa back in 2001.
This time the latter had a real chance of progressing after their first-ever international victory, 2-1 away to Tonga, before a crowd of 18, after which their transgender centre-back – surely a World Cup first – received the man-of-the match-award. Sadly, their hopes died when they lost to a late goal in one of the more unlikely derbies: American Samoa v Samoa, jointly ranked 204th in the world by Fifa. Such quirky material could be played for laughs, but Montague has produced instead a vibrant, at times emotional, chronicle.
And there's often not a lot to laugh about here: the Afghan players who try unsuccessfully to get Israeli stamps in their passports when they travel to play Palestine, because they don't want to return to Kabul; the Eritrea coach who has to keep rebuilding as team after team defect en masse; and the rabid mutual hatred when Hungary meet Romania. Yet he also finds positives as he meets players who, while knowing the odds against World Cup glory are insurmountable, still take pride in pulling on their nation's shirt.
A moving testament to the fact that corruption has yet to conquer all.
Published in trade paperback by Bloomsbury, £12.99
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