If the daily matches of Euro 2021 are not enough to quench your thirst for football, Europe 1 recommends eight novels, comics and biographies to immerse you in the world of supporters and rediscover legendary players and anthology matches.
It's finally time to blow the whistle.
With a year late due to a pandemic, the matches of Euro 2021 are played throughout the month of June and until July 11 in a dozen stadiums, from Baku to Copenhagen and from Saint Petersburg to Seville.
To get you in the mood and stay focused on the ball between matches, Europe 1 recommends eight novels, comics and biographies that will transport you with the players on the pitch or with the supporters in the stands.
Legendary players, English hooligans, pioneers of women's football or Sicilian amateur clubs… Here are some (very good) avenues of football literature.
In the novels department
• Football Factory
, by John King
"We are united. Few. Faithful, loyal. Football gives us something more. Hatred and fear make us different. (…) We share most of the ideas of the masses, but we have adapted them to us . (…) We are hated by the rich and unacceptable to the socialists. " What better description could Tom, a Chelsea hooligan, give of his peers? From game to game and from town to town, they drink beers by the dozen, throw themselves all fists out at supporters of Coventry, Liverpool and Manchester, play cat and mouse with the police and do what they can to end the night with girls. But far from the clichés and shortcuts that associate hooligans only with idiotic violence, John King in his powerful novel portrays the lives of a bunch of after all ordinary guys,proud heirs to the English working class.
> Editions Au diable Vauvert, 22 euros.
•
About Nothing and Nobody
, by Dario Levantino
Rosario is 15 years old. He lives in Brancaccio, a popular district of Palermo, an "open-air dumping ground" a stone's throw from the Mediterranean. Her father is cold, almost contemptuous, her mother is gentle, haunted by the figure of a father whom she barely knew and whom she only remembers as an illustrious goalkeeper. To please his mother, Rosario joins the small team of Brancaccio. He discovers the adrenaline of the game, the osmosis that binds teammates, sometimes tinged with rivalries, and the intoxication of victory. His discovery of the field accompanies over the pages that of pleasure with a "daughter of the bleachers", that of social divisions and family secrets. A raw and poetic first novel, cleverly punctuated with mythological references.
> From Rivages editions, 19 euros.
•
The ladies football club
, by Stefano Massini
It all starts with a kick. Violet Chapman, a munitions factory worker during World War I, shoots a balloon during lunch break. Ten comrades imitate him. Stefano Massini's novel is inspired by true stories, those of the first women's football teams, which emerged in England during the Great War. The posters attracted tens of thousands of spectators at the time. But the English federation soon whistles the end of the celebrations, prohibiting clubs from making their stadiums available to women. "The ball was ours and we are taking it back," sweep the men back from the front. Massini sketches the portrait of eleven pioneers, libertarians almost in spite of themselves.Written in free verse - a surprising form but perfectly mastered - the novel has the accents of an epic story.
> For Globe editions, 20 euros.
Comics side
•
Offside
, by Matthieu Chiara
Match day. Outside the stadium, two homeless people deprived of the game philosophize about football and the world around them. On the pitch, a player full of aces but completely disillusioned dreams of a career as an archaeologist. In the stands, a supporter insults his wife who no longer wants him "to take penalties". At the bar, the stadium gardener thinks with emotion of his blades of grass martyred by the crampons. Through his pointillist and hypnotic drawings, Matthieu Chiara humorously revisits the clichés that stick to the reputation of football - the opium of the people - and of footballers - obsessed with money. Not patronizing for a penny, the tale is playful and downright hilarious.
> From L'agrume editions 22.90 euros.
•
The ghosts of Seville
, by Didier Tronchet and Anne-Claire and Jérôme Jouvray
From the France-Germany 1982 match, Didier never recovered. 40 years later, he still ruminates on the elimination of the Blues in Seville, in the semi-finals of the World Cup. And then one day, everything changes. A detail strikes him, a trifle that no one had noticed at the time but which seems to have changed the course of history. He and his friend Fred, journalist at
L'Equipe
, decide to investigate. The two friends set off in pursuit of Charles Corver, the referee, Patrick Battiston, Michel Hidalgo and Platini, the great figures of Seville. This fiction investigation tells with humor one of the most painful pages of French football, the wounds of which a whole generation of supporters are still healing.
> From Glénat editions, 22 euros.
•
My Platini album
, by Sylvain Venayre, Christopher and Mathilda
May 1985. Sylvain, 15, wakes up in the hospital.
He was hit by a car but in a surprisingly real dream he sees himself as a Heysel survivor.
Two days before his accident, 41 supporters had died in the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juve.
As an adult and a historian, he questions his passion for the round ball, born during the matches of the magic square Giresse, Tigana, Genghini and Platini.
Over the pages, we come across these legends of French football but also Sigmund Freud and the famous commentator Thierry Roland.
Another fascinating dive into the memory and fantasies of a "Seville generation" which is definitely struggling to heal.
> From Delcourt editions, 21.90 euros.
The true stories
•
Johan Cruyff, pop and despot genius
, by Chérif Ghemmour
He is a tutelary figure for millions of lovers of the beautiful game. But how to sum up the immense career of Johan Cruyff, fantastic striker and supreme legend of Ajax Amsterdam and the Netherlands, now coach of the "Dream Team" of FC Barcelona?
In just under 400 pages, the journalist Chérif Ghemmour, one of the pens of the magazine
So Foot
, draws a detailed portrait full of anecdotes of the "Flying Dutchman".
From his childhood in Amsterdam to his heyday in the early 1970s, until his tenure at the head of Barça from 1988 to 1996, this biography carefully examines the Cruyff myth, a genius as charismatic as he is rebellious, who has become a libertarian icon.
But Chérif Ghemmour also depicts the hidden face of this "revolutionary", with an oversized ego and a brittle and authoritarian personality.
An essential biography for all
Oranje
lovers
.
> From Hugo & Cie editions, 17.50 euros.
•
A popular history of football
, by Mickaël Correia
Class struggle, resistance and collective passion. These are the key words of this history of football "from below" in which Mickaël Correia, journalist at Mediapart, presents the round ball as an instrument of emancipation. Drawing his examples from the four corners of the planet, from France to the USSR via Algeria and Palestine, he reviews the workers' resistance at the start of the 20th century, makes a detour through the indomitable enclaves that were stadiums within totalitarian regimes, recalls the central place of the ball in anti-colonialist struggles and delves into footballing counter-cultures, from English hooligans to European ultras. A fascinating epic which sees beyond football-business and gives back their rightful place to the supporters.
> From La Découverte editions, 14 euros.