In the later chapters Wilson traces the sad decline of the domestic game, its parlous financial state, endemic violence and the reduction of even the grandes to the role of feeder clubs which develop and then export talent to Europe and other emerging parts of the world. Fascinating overview of the football history and surrounding socio-political background of Argentina. The ultimate realization of this was was the 1978 World Cup which now seems horribly compromised by politics and featured a team, which I now find out was mediocre by the standards of World Cup winning sides but at the time Kempes and Luque and Ardiles seemed mesmorizing.

It’s estimated as many as 500 babies were taken from dissident parents and adopted by military families. Estudiantes’ attempt at a lap of honour was thwarted when objects rained down from the Old Trafford terraces. The referee Rudolf Kreitlin is escorted off the pitch by police at the end of a volatile World Cup quarter-final at Wembley after Argentina’s captain Antonio Rattín had been sent off in the defeat by England. Parallels are often drawn between the political direction of Argentina and the fate of its football teams: for instance, the coup d'état which overthrew Juan Perón in 1955 and subsequent spiral into chaos is shown to mirror the rapid shift in dominant footballing ideologies from the freewheeling positivity of ‘la nuestra’ to a culture of cynicism, defensiveness and violence in the sixties. But I guess Maradona is the physical embodiment of the soul of the nation, a character trait that the people can relate to.His two goals against England in the 1986 World Cup quarter final in Mexico City showed both sides of the national footballing character - to that extent he was a worthy successor to the Angels With Dirty Faces. p. 209: "Cornejo took him to see Cacho Paladino and he gave Maradona a course of pills and injections to build him up.

Wilson brings to life a time in which ‘la nuestra’ (‘our way’, a uniquely Argentinian version of the game which focuses on individual skill and self-expression) flourished and fans flocked to see a seemingly endless chain of incredible homegrown talents. From the freeway, the city’s suburbs struck me as rigid, seemingly infinite juts of concrete, like a Georges Braque piece dressed in orange neon. Uruguay's remarkable successes in the Olympic Games of 1924 and 1928 and the inaugural World Cup in 1930 put South American football and this tiny nation on the map; as professionalism took hold and the five 'grandes' (River Plate; Boca Juniors; Racing; San Lorenzo; Independiente) began to dominate the league, so Argentina entered a Golden Age in which the distinctive national style known as La Nuestra (Our Way) was said to be producing the best football in the world.Angels with Dirty Faces” by Jonathan Wilson is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the mercurial genius, often intertwined with the violence, of the Argentinian game. Even the supply of talent seemed to have dried up: the youth team won the FIFA Under-20 World Cup five times between 1995 and 2007 but had failed to translate this into success at senior level, with six major finals lost between 2004 and 2016. She is looking deeply at the violence of prisons and the lives and impact of people who have engaged in violent acts with a love that never stops believing that we are more than the violence that structures our days. I started reading this book four days after watching Argentina beat Brazil in the Copa America final at the iconic Maracana in Rio de Janeiro, ending a 28 year trophy drought as Messi finally captured his first international title.