"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death," the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once remarked. "I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." In this, one of the seminal books on soccer, award-winning sports journalist Simon Kuper explores just how important the beautiful game can be throughout the world. Kuper traveled to 22 countries from Argentina to Cameroon, from Ukraine to the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), from Brazil to South Africa, and from the United States to Spain, to investigate the powerful influence that soccer exerts on politics, culture, and society. The result--part travelogue, part sociopolitical essay--is a fascinating and entertaining chronicle of the complex and secretive plots of ambition and power, of individual and national passions, of the sport's history, and, of course, of the beauty of the world's most popular sport.