Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

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The story Wilson tells from that point onwards is broadly one of a conflict between those two tendencies within the Argentinian game.

To one side it represented a gleeful revenge for a hoard of slights going back way beyond the Falklands to the looting of Buenos Aires in 1806 by British warships under the command of Sir Home Popham. At the turn of the twentieth century, Argentina was on course to become one of the wealthiest countries on earth. That famous confrontation between Antonio Rattín and Rudolf Kreitlein – which held up the match for several minutes, depriving one team of their charismatic leader while giving their opponents a helping hand towards a moment of destiny – was among the most prominent of several incidents that have shaped the footballing relationship between England and Argentina.

The ultimate realization of this was was the 1978 World Cup which now seems horribly compromised by politics and featured a team, which I now find out was mediocre by the standards of World Cup winning sides but at the time Kempes and Luque and Ardiles seemed mesmorizing. Strasznie bałem się, że książka będzie nudnym zbiorem faktów i statystyk, wzbogaconych notkami biograficznymi zawodników i trenerów rodem z Wikipedii, a oryginalny tytuł i ciekawa okładka okażą się tylko marketingowym wabikiem na frajerów.

His latest book, Angels with Dirty Faces, traces the story of football in Argentina from its development and spread in the late 19th century to the present day, taking in the myriad instances of triumph, failure, glory and disgrace which have occurred along the way. Actually the most interesting stuff to me are the parts where sport and politics intersect — for example, the way how the right wing military junta attempted to use the national team to advance political propaganda and distract citizens from people the people they were disappearing. He offers a nuanced examination of the extraordinary talents of Maradona and Lionel Messi, "the all-time great who never played at home". If you’re interested in history, the roots of the game and getting under the skin of one of the world’s foremost footballing nations then I’d have a go at this.Angels with Dirty Faces is a superbly written, shocking, sensuous, sometimes sadistic and even scandalous binding of biographies struggling with the question: What does redemption actually mean?

His two goals against England in the 1986 World Cup quarter final in Mexico City showed both sides of the national footballing character - to that extent he was a worthy successor to the Angels With Dirty Faces. Angels with Dirty Faces” by Jonathan Wilson is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the mercurial genius, often intertwined with the violence, of the Argentinian game. Together they explore the questions: People can do unimaginable things to one another—and then what? Angels with Dirty Faces is wonderfully segmented into bite-sized chapters, meaning it’s both snackable and an irresistible page-turner. I can park his double standards as an ex-hand of Arab News whilst criticising the current ownership of Newcastle United and by association those of us who hold it dear.The greatest intrigue lies at the heart of the country, as you come to understand not just the frailties and triumphs of the national team – but also of the fragmented club structure and the battles of amateurism and professionalism. You know you’re in for a detailed account when the prologue goes into the history of Don Pedro de Mendoza setting off across the Atlantic from Cadiz in 1535. Angels with Dirty Faces is a memoir of a reality so crucial and transformative that the state is desperate to keep it locked out of our collective consciousness.

The strongest section of the book is the second, which covers the ‘Golden Age’ of Argentinian football from 1930-1958.It is the history of the founding of a country that was followed by the introduction of its footballing soul not long after. Jonathan Wilson, having lived in Buenos Aires, is ideally placed to chart the sport’s development in a country that, perhaps more than any other, lives and breathes football, its theories and its myths. But it is a good book and one worth persisting with to develop an understanding of one of the world’s greatest football nations and the spirit within it. Although Wilson can be sometimes open to criticism that his columns in The Guardian are prone to over-thinking, they are always well-written and worth your time in reading them.