Well as many of you that follow the blog know I am a huge football fan and as I type the world cup groups for 2014 Brazil are being drawn live on tv so as we wait and see if it runs smoothly .We sit with baited breath as the draw carring on who will England get ? I will of course nearer the time I may do another post about the Literature of the other teams in the world cup like I did four years ago. But for today I focus on the three teams that England face in the world cup we will be playing
Uruguay
Well I ve not many Uruguaian books under review just one Garden of Silica by Ida Vitale the well known Uruguainan poet .Other well known writers from Uruguay are Eduardo Galeano and Juan Carlos Onetti are probably the two most well known to us in English .I will be reading one or more before June .As for the players of Uruguay well Diego Forlan played for united that I support and of course Luis Suarez is very well know to most English football fans
Costa Rica
Óscar Núñez Olivas is the only name I know of in English easily available I will be looking more in depth at this I have on a couple of occasions when Costa rica first qualified to find a book from there and the Olivas on a year of reading was the only one that jump out more research may turn up another .As for players I had to look up their national team and find a player I knew well .Then saw there captain is a Fulham player Bryan Ruiz and scored this blinding goal .
Italy
Well the relief I ve a lot of Italian books under review on Winstonsdad .I had two in my top ten books this year ten by Andrej Longo and the parrots by Flippo Bologna .I m sure next year will have more italian books to add to the 23 under review on the blog .As for a player it has to be the bad boy of Italian football the former Manchester city player Mario Balotelli.So as they call him some super Mario goals .
Well we have the heat of the Amazon and not the easy group ,but it could be worse and I can’t wait for the games .Come on England#
How was your Draw for the world cup ?
ROTFL Stu, this is a very clever! You have managed to bypass my sporting bypass!
The World Cup draw throws up a fascinating contrast for England fans and we Scots. While you are searching your brains and hearts for answers to can we beat them, I and my fellow Scots in exile in England are searching our family trees and ancestory websites to see if we can join them so that by claiming Uruguayan, Italian and Costa Rican family, so that I can justify to my family my probable support to them when the tournament starts!
Now if you think England have a tough group Stu, spare a thought for the poor Aussies. Spain, the Netherlands and Chile – *that’s* a bad group!
Hi Stu, I’m crawling out from under my rock to say hello! This is a unique view of literature! I have a student right now who is from Uruguay (not even sure how to spell it!). And he plays soccer! Thanks for giving me some Uruguayan authors to look for….
Oh Stu, Ghana’s draw looks bad. We have Portugal, Germany and the USA. The list has sent a shudder through our collective body. I mulling over a read of our opponents’ literature during the group stages. I like your post. I will do same if I have the time.
And no, England’s group is not easy either.
Good luck to us all!
Yes yours is rather tough also throes up the bizarre boateng brothers playing each other again it will be hard one to get out of our other problem will be the heat
I love how you’ve combined books and the World Cup here, great idea. I’ve read books from Italy/Italian writers in translation but never anything from Uruguay or Costa Rica.
I’ve read a couple from Uruguay but not Costa Rican will be try one this year hopefully