Historical past of Soccer: The Stunning Sport

Amazing effort, mostly amazing results
This is a remarkable feat, a obvious labor of love, and if you’re from England it’s probably heaven on earth.If you’re not from England, you may weary a bit from the rather relentless Anglo-centric viewpoint, but hey–they put it together, they’re entitled to their own focus.As with any project as long as this, some parts fail to impress. The significant amount of time spent on the development of the game in India and on the African continent was (IMO) a little too much. Interesting to see once…but not something I’d likely share with my soccer friends. (“Hey! You’ve got to see this 30 minute segment on how political and sociological conditions in Ghana influenced the selection of the national team during the 1990’s!”)But there is a great deal here that approaches the magnificent. It was worth half the price of the whole package just to see the interview with Maradona where he mocks (MOCKS!) Peter Shilton for the hand-of-God goal. A classic!In fact the segment on South America (mostly Argentina and Uruguay) was flat-out excellent…followed by an entire hour devoted just to Brazil, with wonderful footage from the ’56 World Cup that marked the emergence of Pele at the age of 17.One unavoidable problem with the disc is that this “history” gets older every year. This was put together just after the 1998 WC–a debacle for the United States. When talking about developing soccer countries, the USA isn’t mentioned once. Instead, we have Hugo Chavez from Mexico complaining about how “sure we’re the best in North America–but so what? We never get to play anybody good!” Grrrrr.If you buy this, here’s what to expect (the good and bad):1. Nothing but a few dismissive yawns towards the USA–appropriate in 1998, but wildly inaccurate now.2. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the various incarnations of the English national side.3. Wonderful analysis and history of football in South America.4. A genuinely interesting analysis of the struggles between club teams and national teams, and how players can be caught between them.5. Lots of interesting video of some of the first cup competitions in Europe, that follows the development of teams in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia (as it was called at the tme) and more.6. An objective view of the problems of hooliganism (and a commendable willingness to place the blame largely on England, where it belongs.)7. More than you wanted to know about football in India.8. A lengthy and more-or-less interesting history of the bureaucracy known as FIFA.9. The sense that the folks who put this together sincerely love the game.As you watch it all, you’ll love it to.

History of Soccer: The beautiful game
As a soccer player myself and having seen countless amounts of footage and soccer videos, History of Soccer was a major let down. It plays like a monotone history lesson and fails to communicate the passion of the game. It contains far too much footage of landscapes, statutes and buildings than of beautiful plays. The interviews are nice, but they far too long and tedius: they should have played most of the interview as a background talk, while showing the actual footage of the beautiful plays being talked about. It missed a lot of great available footage of crack players (Maradona, Pele, Garrincha, Zico, the Kaiser, Johann Kruif, Higuita, Valderama, Ronaldo, etc.) instead, it shows the players walking about, kissing their girlfriends or travelling around… If you are an academic, or a fan, you may like it. If you are a player, you’ll find the DVDs interesting but rather boring. If you don’t know the game, you will learn about it (after enduring HOURS of monotone talk), but you will not fall in love with the game. Pele himself did something similar back in the 80s or early 90s: a series which aired in TV that gave a full background of the game, all of its aspects, presented all of its stars and taught one how to play it. Such program was of better quality, with great insight into the game and leaved the audience with a desire to pick up a ball and start kicking it! Not only did he talk about the game but most importantly, he SHOWED what he was talking about. Such series had all of the footage shown in this DVD series and much more. I sure wish I could get a hold of it on DVD and I was wishing this DVD series would be sort of an update to that program, but was quite disappointed.

Très déçue de ce produit, acheter pour offrir en cadeau a mon père et TOUS les disques sont rayés dans l’emballage.Produit qui finira a la poubelle malheureusement

Product as described, fair price, fast shipping, quite a positive experience overall!