Book 30: Soccer and Philosophy

Soccer and Philosophy: Beautiful Thoughts on the Beautiful Game

Edited by Ted Richards

With the women's World Cup currently underway in Canada, I figured that now was as good a time as any to grab Soccer and Philosophy. Having read the series installment about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I had an idea of what to expect: a surprisingly successful blend of serious philosophy and pop-culture passion. This is, much to the editor's credit, precisely what the book delivers, with very few exceptions. Ted Richards balances a healthy number of heavily academic papers with more casual offerings, increasing the book's appeal to a broad audience; indeed, the myriad references to soccer's most famous personalities, teams, and games may provide a greater barrier to entry than similar references to philosophers or particular schools of thought. This sense of purpose and passion, combined with a sensible thematic organization, results in an academic book that is welcoming and remarkably readable, particularly considering the inherent complexity of many of the ideas explored within.

Whether by editorial direction or their own benevolence, most of the contributors manage to introduce and engage serious philosophical inquiries without overwhelming the uninitiated or resorting to condescension. Their universal appreciation of soccer is evident throughout their work, and the book is doubtless better for it. One senses that each chapter is, in its way, a labor of love, and numerous references to personal experience serve to humanize and illustrate concepts that are otherwise entirely abstract. It is clear that each author plays, watches, and thinks deeply about the beautiful game just as their audience does, and it is a pleasure to examine it alongside them. This is, perhaps unexpectedly, most evident in the biographies that follow the primary text. To say that they are wildly entertaining would be a tragic understatement, at best, and if this is the philosopher's idea of a serious academic biography I fear that I have chosen the wrong field.

Intended more for philosophically minded soccer fans than for those who don't understand the appeal of a game with so little scoring (and not infrequently none at all), the book rewards close reading and consideration even in its drier moments. Plenty of famous thinkers, from Plato to Nietzsche, make cameo appearances, often in several different chapters, and the net effect is to render philosophy accessible to readers who may identify first and foremost as sports fans. Neither lightweight nor impossibly obtuse, the book examines such weighty concepts as the role of the individual and state in determining and enforcing the law, the literally revolutionary impact of the Magical Magyars, and the ways in which soccer reflects the entirety of human experience and, in its way, life itself. In seeking to answer the most basic and most complex questions about our engagement with this of all sports, Soccer and Philosophy offers an engaging experience for fans who want to dig deeper, to question the obvious, and to share their appreciation for the beautiful game.

Grade: A