Angels With Dirty Faces Quotes

“the sporting club gave the people of a barrio something to rally behind, a projection of their area and by extension themselves in the wider world.”
― Jonathan Wilson, Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

“Ángel Cappa era. Cappa preached a doctrine of skillful soccer that appealed to traditionalists. For him, soccer offers an opportunity for the poorest to climb the social ladder, a way out of poverty, both metaphorical, in the way a gifted player can achieve some kind of artistic transcendence irrespective of background, and literal in the way a good player can earn vast sums of money and gain general respect.”
― Jonathan Wilson, Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

“Pope Francis is a San Lorenzo fan, of course. He was born in December 1936 in Flores, the barrio immediately to the west of Almagro, where Father Lorenzo had founded the club three decades earlier. His father played for San Lorenzo’s basketball team, and as a child he would go with his mother to watch matches. There’s always a suspicion with public figures that their professed support for soccer clubs is skin deep, but not with Francis. If he sees somebody wearing a San Lorenzo shirt or carrying San Lorenzo colors in the crowds in Saint Peter’s Square, he makes a point of acknowledging them. If San Lorenzo have won their previous game, he will usually signal the score with his fingers. At his public audiences, there are always groups draped in Argentinian flags, looking less like pilgrims than a soccer crowd. Those who work regularly with Francis roll their eyes when asked about his love of the game; apparently, he talks incessantly about soccer.”
― Jonathan Wilson, Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

“Soccer,” Bielsa said, “rests on four fundamentals, as outlined by Óscar Tabárez: (1) defense; (2) attack; (3) how you move from defense to attack; (4) how you move from attack to defense. The issue is trying to make those passages as smooth as possible.”
― Jonathan Wilson, Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

“It seems telling of the respective fortunes of the two nations that while six of Germany’s squad went on to win the World Cup, seven of the England squad they beat in the final went on to play for Sunderland.”
― Jonathan Wilson, Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

“Reinaldo ‘Mostaza’ Merlo, the former River midfielder with the mustard-coloured hair, ordered that the concrete moat around the pitch be ripped out. When it was, the skeleton of the seventh cat buried by Independiente fans in 1967 was discovered. Later that year, Racing won the league,”
― Jonathan Wilson, Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

“the B sample was positive fell on the twentieth anniversary of Perón’s death. They were two figures in whom many Argentinians continued to believe, excusing their faults long after their powers had waned.”
― Jonathan Wilson, Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

“Maradona was quick to try to make capital. ‘For 364 days of the year,’ he told the fans who supported him every Sunday, ‘you are considered to be foreigners by your own country; today you must do what they want by supporting the Italian team. By contrast, I am a Neapolitan for 365 days of the year.”
― Jonathan Wilson, Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina

“Johan Cruyff, explaining his profound aestheticism, once said that he preferred to hear the noise of the ball striking the post to scoring a goal.”
― Jonathan Wilson, Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina