İki düzine ülkenin -uzak plajlarından arka sokaklarına, ve hatta gökdelenlerin çatısına kadar-futbolun kalbine göz açıcı bir yolculuk. Bu kitap, ödüllü belgesel film "Pelada"'nın açılımı-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfLEcfH8OL4 ).Film, Oxenham ve onun erkek arkadaşı Luke'un yeni futbol yetenekleri aramak; futbola doğal yeteneği olan oyuncu adaylarını bulmak için dünya çapındaki gezilerini konu eder.Trinidad & Tobago, Brezilya, Uruguay, Paraguay, Arjantin, Bolivya, Peru, İngiltere, Fransa, İtalya, İsviçre, Avusturya, Almanya, Macaristan, Mısır, Kenya, Güney Afrika, Gana, Togo, Japonya, Çin, İsrail, Filistin ve İran karşısında, Oxenham dünyanın sevdiği oyunda evrenselliği bulur. Finding the Game: Three Years, Twenty-Five Countries, and the Search for Pickup Soccer. Oxenham, Gwendolyn (Author) Jun 2012. 304 p. St. Martin's, hardcover, $25.99 Booklist:
The youngest Division I athlete in NCAA history, Oxenham was a soccer star for Duke at age 16. By 23, she felt like a has-been, but she still loved to play. Her love of the sport in its least-official form, pickup games, birthed a documentary film project in which she, her boyfriend, and a crew of two traveled the globe looking for games. Their tenacity is remarkable. Despite financial and language barriers, they play with sheep-shearing gauchos in Uruguay, with hardened criminals in La Paz’s infamous San Pedro Prison, in an Arabs-against-Jews contest in Jerusalem, and with salarymen on a Tokyo rooftop. The most memorable sequences take place in the slums of Nairobi, where the poverty is overwhelming, and Tehran, where it’s illegal for women to play with men (she gets a game anyway). Oxenham avoids platitudes but gracefully shows how playing together can unite us more than shared worship of famous teams. Soccer fans will love this, but anyone who enjoys shoestring travelogues will like it, too. They’ll all want to watch the film, Pelada.
Publishers Weekly:
A former player at Duke University, Oxenham spent three years traveling the world with her boyfriend (who had also played soccer, at Notre Dame), his former Duke teammate, and her college filmmaking partner in the hopes of playing in and filming pickup soccer games in what would turn out to be 25 different countries. The result was the documentary film Pelada, but this book gives more than the behind-the-scenes accounting of the ups and downs of making the movie and trekking the globe on a shoestring budget. The friends go to interesting places and play lots of futbol, but it is the people they meet—a superstar who just happens to be a tiny girl from a Brazilian slum; criminals in a Bolivian prison; Arabs and Jews who grudgingly play against one another in Jerusalem—that truly make the young travelers’ point that sometimes sport can be more than just a game. While all the filmmakers have a role in the book, this is Oxenham’s story, a memoir of a young woman transitioning from school and sports to work and life outside the collegiate bubble. Imbued with both the spirit of youth and the wistful longing of past travels, Oxenham’s narrative is a suitable companion to her film and a proud testament to her favorite game. B&w photos.
