Kein Mann, kein Schuß, kein Tor. Das Drama des deutschen Fußballs.

by Helmut Böttiger

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Paperback

Published April 1, 1997

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since this book is out of print and, worse yet, came out as only as a paperback, it brings up a lot of “If…” questions. So here we go:

If you read German and…
If you love football (soccer) and…
If German football is your focus and…
If you were alive then and want to reminisce and gain insight or…
If you weren’t and want to know more and…
If you live in or are in Germany, then…
Never pass by a used bookstore to find out if they have a copy or can get one for you.

Football is, to paraphrase the great Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, much more than a matter of life and death; it’s more important than either. An early paragraph in Böttinger’s compelling prose, compiled and edited from articles he wrote for three German publications between 1987-1993, sums it up less colloquially, but accurately:

The best football is truly played by a team in which everyone is an individualist who puts their spontaneous subjectivity into service of the team. This dialectic between the individual and the whole is the foundational motivation for positive action. Football can serve as a role model…

Böttinger’s explains why, through German examples, for some, the football of one’s youth is the best football that was ever played. And the best of what football can create on and off the field of play transcends life and death.

I can’t believe I let this impulse buy sit on a shelf for thirty years. But perhaps that’s part of the reason I enjoyed it so much.