THE WORLD'S BEST SOCCER BOOK

A dive into the wild and sometimes wacky worlds of association football and related games.

Notable for breadth if not depth, this colorful overview aims to keep both new and confirmed fans of “the beautiful game” riveted with sustained flurries of loosely organized pictures and short entries. Basic guidelines to field positions and modern rules lead to a sweeping survey of the world of professional play, with profiles of 10 soccer superstars (five men, five women), select record holders, 10 popular European clubs, and major international tournaments. Interspersed features include galleries of team shirts, celebratory dances, similar competitions from antiquity and other cultures, and modern variations like Robot-Ball and Motoball. The book covers how rules and balls have evolved over time and includes an assortment of soccer bloopers and weird incidents (like a 1954 match in Florence that was suspended following a UFO sighting). All of this information comes with a generous mix of diagrams, spot illustrations by Detwiler, and photos of racially diverse children and famous players. Giunta’s comics, featuring a newly formed squad of young animals who are learning how to play together, feel more like intrusions than necessary interludes. Still, the whole package has the quality of a pep rally and will benefit from young readers’ rising interest in the sport.

Broad and effervescent.