The World is a Ball: The Joy, Madness and Meaning of Soccer

By John Doyle

Globe and Mail columnist John Doyle explores the international phenomenon of soccer

In A Great Feast of Light, John Doyle viewed his childhood in Ireland through the television screen. Now, he turns his eye to the most popular sport on the planet: soccer. It's a journey that begins with the first game John saw, in 1960s-era Ireland, through soccer in the 21st century - the World Cups in 02 and 06, the European Championships in 04 and 08. And Doyle has traveled the globe during the build-up to next year's World Cup 2010. In between the drunken fans, crazed taxi drivers, leprechauns and lederhosen, Doyle muses on the evolution of soccer as a global phenomenon. He shows a sport where for 90 minutes on the pitch anything seems possible. A game where colonized nations can tackle the power of their colonizers; where oppressed immigrant groups can thoroughly trounce their host countries. This book examines soccer from a new angle. John Doyle offers a compelling social history of the ultimate sport, each country and team competing in the historic 2010 World Cup, and how the game has kept pace as the global village has sprung up around the playing field.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 11, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307374455

John Doyle

John Doyle is a permanent faculty member and Senior Lecturer in the Architecture and Urban Design Programs at RMIT University. He is a practising architect and a director of COMMON. He has taught at numerous schools in Australia and internationally. He is a visiting professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is Program Manager and Head of the Master of Architecture program at RMIT, and President of the Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia. He was the co-curator, along Graham Crist and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, of the 2019 Supertight exhibition at the Design Hub in Melbourne, and contributor to the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale, 2019 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, 2019 The Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture and 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale.