Kicking Off Around The World

“A tour-de-force that touches on how soccer is always mixed up with politics in every corner of the globe” Mehreen Khan, The Times and co-host of the Humans & Heroes soccer podcast

“An absolute must for anybody interested in the history of soccer clubs. It not only provides riveting stories, it also reveals surprises about the politics of soccer” Stephen Ortega, Global Sports Initiative, Harvard University

Think you know everything about soccer?

Which soccer match triggered a war? How did “the beautiful game” push back against the tyranny of dictatorship, and usher another into power? Kicking Off Around the World includes 55 incredible stories in which soccer clubs have been a mirror to—and a maker of—world history.

Full of anecdotes, surprising facts and illustrations, Ramon Usall mixes the grassroots with the greatest of all time; the unknown and the unforgettable. He looks at the women’s game, soccer during the war in Ukraine, and stories of clubs from the US to Britain, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, from football under the Nazis to the communists and everyone in between. 

Ramon Usall is a writer, academic and political activist. He is the author of Futbol per la llibertat, which won the Josep Vallverdú Essay Prize.