In The World Is a Ball, critic and author, John Doyle travels the world in pursuit of his first love, football, and offers a compelling vision of a sport where colonized nations can take on and beat their colonizers, where oppressed immigrants can thoroughly trounce their host countries. In dispatches from Italy to Ireland, from Buenos Aires to Bratislava, and between encounters with crazed taxi drivers and drunken fans dressed as leprechauns or in lederhosen, Doyle celebrates the evolution of soccer as a global phenomenon. He begins his journey with the first game he saw in repressed 1960s-Ireland - a match which left a lasting impression on him and then takes us through the decades until we reach football in the 21stcentury. Here he focuses on the World Cups of 2002 and 2006, the European Championships of 2004 and 2008 - and on to the key games and teams involved in the historic 2010 World Cup in South Africa. With eye-popping, eyewitness accounts that are both hilarious and nostalgic,The World Is a Ball brilliantly weaves together scintillating travelogue, gripping match reporting and compelling social history. Insightful and thought-provoking, it offers a vision of the beautiful game, which for some, is more a religion than a sport; it is where rich meets poor in the pleasure of play - and for a mere 90 minutes, anything seems possible.