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 enlarge | Author: Jamie Trecker
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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New (41) Used (33) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 626684
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 0156030985
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.334668
EAN: 9780156030984
ASIN: 0156030985
Publication Date: October 1, 2007
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-10 of 10 | | « PREV | | |
 Total Disappointment. December 24, 2007
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I really wanted to give this book two stars but simply cannot do so. I found Love & Blood extremely disappointing. This is no Grass of Another Country or Fever Pitch. The narrator is far more interested in the narrator than he was the events of the 2006 World Cup. I found these pages poorly organized, unfocused, self-absorbed, and, yes, pretentious. There are footnotes galore here and they seriously undermined the work's readability while often adding little of substance to the overall account. As an example of the lack of editing, in the middle of telling the tale of the US team's performance, Trecker went off on a 10 page tangent about the history of the team, before getting back to the match proceedings.
The author was very pretentious in my view and appears to be just another sports journo who feels somewhat inadequate as a result of vocational choice. He seems to desire convincing others that he is in fact a serious person which is why he goes on about German history, poetry, Weimar art, and world politics. That he wishes to discuss those things is fine but a book on soccer--especially one not even 300 pages long--is not the place to do so.
As a conservative I am conscious of the fact that most soccer fans disagree with my political views which is fine with me. I always respect diversity, but I don't expect to be forcefed leftist opinion after purchasing a work about sport. Trecker struck me as being a reflexive liberal and one with a disdainful attitude towards his own country and its people. I found his outlook tiresome and even scrawled an epithet in the margin of a page in which he implied that NFL officials would be better off trying to help the poor and the unfortunate than wasting their time discussing the intricacies of a football call. What a red herring! NFL officials are in no position to fix social problems, and most of these "problems" are only exacerbated by government solutions at any rate. The bottom line here is that Trecker was more concerned with telling us about himself and his views than he was talking about the World Cup itself which is why I think Love & Blood is a waste of money.
 Pretentious, uninformative, and awful December 9, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Trecker certainly spends a lot of time in this book talking about the problems that the typical American sports fan has with soccer. Unfortunately, his text also highlights the problems that most American soccer fans have with American soccer writers. Trecker tries so hard to be presentable to the illuminati of the sport in his politics, in his views of his country, and his views of his sports' fans that he never gets around to writing anything informative or even interesting about the World Cup in general. Considering how interesting the Cup actually is, that is a feat in itself. Don't bother with this one.
Quick read - but stick to soccer November 4, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I picked this book up on my way out of a Borders store, not having previously heard anything about it. The title and the short description on the back, however, intrigued me as I spent 4 weeks at home in Germany last summer.
Trecker does a good job shedding light on the workings of FIFA, the US soccer federation and the problems the sport faces in the US. The soccer tidbits in the book are a good read, but he gets much too shallow when he tries to analyse participating countries, their followers and customs. He should have left the judgement out of this book (or analyse deeper) - after all, why do I care about his inability to buy medicine in the host country, something he goes into some detail about? And while he complains multiple times about perceived transportation problems he makes no effort to investigate the underlying reasons - good journalism reads differently.
While I found the concept (reading a book about the 2006 World Cup) intriguing, the execution fell short of my expectations.
 Relive those glorious days of summer 2006 September 27, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Though not a particularly good writer, the author is passionate, energetic and opinionated. I enjoyed his views on FIFA, Dominic Arena and the sad saga of America's losing team in last summer's World Cup. Recounting the major games, the turning points in the World Cup and the France Italy game are well done and readable. He generalizes in describing the France Italy summary failing to inform the reader of the score but all this is small beer to what otherwise is a fun book for soccer fans.
 Excellent book! September 23, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I haven't followed soccer since playing it as a kid, but Trecker instantly drew me into not just the game, but the scene. Starting with the Introduction (2002 World Cup), and driving straight through the aftermath of the 2006 World Cup, you get incredible camera angle after camera angle showing what's important on the field, off the field, and why.
The World Cup doesn't happen in a vacuum. They're all four years in the making, and most every every player has a day-job for some other club. Trecker shares the back-stories that helped me understand the headlines and commotion around the 2006 World Cup. That is, however, the least of the book's accomplishments.
As with all great writing, this book gave me pause--threw me into reflection, sent my thoughts spinning. As I read, I had moments where I was shuddering to suppress laughter inappropriate for my surroundings. At other times, I let the book fall into my lap as I considered, for instance, the social implications of suddenly liberating a repressed female society with not just public independence, but with anonymity...
This is an exciting book, a sometimes incendiary book, but also a deeply thoughtful book that's much more than the coverage of a World Cup, or two. Balancing personal to the point of confessional with the most analytic investigative journalism, Trecker's narrative is unvarnished, compassionate, insightful, and always from the hip. His recounting of matches is often thrilling, and the history is informative, but the real treasure is his depiction and analysis of both the context and personalities of the World Cup--ultimately illustrating that in various measure we are all footballers, fans, and freaks.
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