While wistfully celebrating the beauty and fluid grace of the game, knowledgeable lifelong fan Almond compellingly details the crises facing football: that it destroys players, corrupts communities and educational institutions, and represents a morally dubious use of resources. The evidence is preponderant and growing. The book also asks us implicitly, as fans, to consider our addiction to the kind of spectacle that differs only by degree from that used to placate the Roman mob of two thousand years ago, and whether we frankly prefer to accept destruction and suffering for the sake of our own amusement. A book to be read NOW: fall 2014. –Jesse
