Although soccer had long been the worlds game when Michael J. Agovino first encountered it in 1982, here it was just a poor cousin to American football, to be found on obscure UHF channels and in foreign magazines. But as Agovino himself passionately pursued soccer, Americans got wise and turned it into one of the most popular sports in the country. Agovinos love affair with soccer is a portrait of the games culture and an intimate history of the sports coming of age in the United States. Agovinos quest takes him from the unkempt field in the Bronx where he taught himself to play to some of the sports most storied venues and historic matches. With Agovino we travel from school fields to Giants Stadium, then from England to Germany, Italy, and Spain, and FIFA headquarters, along the way taking in the final days of the North American Soccer League, the 1994 World Cup, and the birth of Major League Soccer. Offering the perspective of fan, pickup player, and journalist, Agovino chronicles his obsession with the sport and its phenomenal evolution.
Michael J. Agovino is the author of The Bookmaker: A Memoir of Money, Luck, and Family from the Utopian Outskirts of New York City.
