The Football Men: Up Close with the Giants of the Modern Game - Tapa blanda

'Well-researched, balanced read that gives an insight into some of the most famous faces in football' --Sun

'It is a readable collection, and, as ever, Kuper is insightful and entertaining' --Tribune

'As anyone who sat through a post-match interview will know, getting footballers to express themselves isn't easy. Which is why Simon Kuper's new book is so fascinating. The Football Men features intimate profiles of some of the game's biggest names - from Cantona and Maradona to Rooney and Mourinho - and throws up compelling stories and shocking revelations' --Shortlist

'An up-close look at some of the giants of the game, describing the football cultures they grew up in, the way they play, and the baggage they bring to work'
--TNT Magazine

'Even if 'the beautiful game' holds no interest for you, award-winning football writer Simon Kuper's incisive pen sketches of many of football's greatest living stars prove compulsive reading' --Metro

The great footballers and coaches are rarely glimpsed from up close. They shield themselves from the tabloids, hide their personalities behind professionalism, and in the words of the cliche, 'do their talking on the pitch'. This book gets up close to them. The Football Menis not a series of celebrity profiles, and it doesn't attempt to unearth secrets in the players' private lives. Rather, it portrays these men as three-dimensional human beings. It describes their upbringings, the football cultures they grew up in, the way they play, and the baggage that they bring to their relationships at work. This multimillion-pound, multinational world is mostly inhabited by ordinary men. The profiles in this book are sometimes funny, but never breathless or sensational. Some of the profiles in this book are based on interviews; others are the results of time the author spent with that person; sometimes the profile is a story of a country. All are fascinating and shed light on their subject to reveal things you wouldn't expect. From one of the great sports writers of our time this is a penetrating and surprising collection of articles on the figures that have defined the modern sporting world.