Sign-In
Cart
History of North and South American Football
Paperback
FootballGeneral World HistorySouth American History
Publisher: Paul Hawkins
Published: Jan 29 2026
Pages: 174
Weight: 0.46
Height: 0.40 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Brazil will never be short of Pelés, Garrinchas and Ronaldinhos, because every Brazilian child is trying to be one.- Rivellino
Working in Brazil has given me an affinity with their people and a life-long interest in South American football. I have witnessed young kids playing football in the favelas whose only way out is to become a professional footballer. Along Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro, you will see kids doing amazing things with a football every minute of the day, seven days a week.
The passion, energy and determination of Europeans is one thing but the desperation to succeed of the Brazilians is always going to make them better than anyone else and that is why in every World Cup from 1958, Brazil have been the favourite to win and they have won five times. The only disappointment for their delirious fans was when they hosted the World Cup in 1950 and 2014, and failed to win. In fact, they have never forgotten the 1950 disaster when they were beaten at the Maracanã by their neighbours Uruguay. Nor will they forget the 7-1 defeat by Germany in front of their own fans at Belo Horizonte, in 2014, described by Phil McNulty as a drama that will never be forgotten by anyone who witnessed it.
Brazilian football was slow to develop in the early 1900s as their main source of migrants, Portugal, at that time did not have the same passion for the game but Brazilian football changed forever as soon as mixed-race players were accepted in the Brazilian leagues in the 1920s. The emergence of Uruguayan and Argentinian football was as sudden as it was surprising and they really took the world by storm in the Olympic Games in 1924 and 1928, in Paris and Amsterdam, the two teams reaching the final in 1928. Their participation, of course, required a lengthy voyage across the Atlantic Ocean for each of the tournaments. Olympic football at that time was the only international football event and would have commanded the attention of the footballing public at large.
In 1924, as a warm-up for the Olympic Games in Paris, the Uruguayan national team had arranged nine matches in Spain. They played in Vigo, Bilbao, La Coruña and Madrid and won every match so they arrived in Paris in good spirit, health and physical fitness and a reputation. In the Olympics they beat Yugoslavia 7-0, USA 3-0, France 5-1, Netherlands 2-1 and Switzerland 3-0 in the final. The world took note. The Uruguayans had arrived and had won their first Olympic gold medal. In 1928 they repeated the feat and after eliminating the hosts, Netherlands followed by Italy and Germany, they met their bête noir, Argentina in the final, and in front of large crowds, drew the first game and managed to win the replay 2-1. To cap it all, of course, Uruguay also won the 1930 World Cup.
North American football has endured a bumpy run, unlike its neighbours in the south, where football took off in the early 1920s and has never stopped. In the USA and Canada its been a stop and go since the very first football match in 1866, apparently, played under FA Rules, but the rules at that time permitted handling and running with the ball and there was therefore little distinction between soccer and rugby. The game was played between Fall River Rovers and Bethlehem Steel in Wisconsin and was certainly the earliest football match to be played in any part of the world outside Europe. The reason for the early start for football in the USA was simply because Fall River had become the centre for the textile industry in the USA and had attracted thousands of immigrant workers from the North of England textile mills, where football was first played in the UK. So, these immigrants knew about football, the rules and the skills required. Bethlehem Seel was the early center or the US steel industry and also attracted thousands of UK immigrants.
Also from
Hawkins, Paul
Avoiding Adulthood: Irresponsible Advice for Begrudging Grown-Ups (Life Is Hard... So Why Not Cheat?)
Hawkins, Paul
Paperback
Also in
General World History
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Titanic: The Ship Magnificent - Volume Two: Interior Design and Fitting Out
Beveridge, Bruce
Braunschweiger, Art
Hall, Steve
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book
Bittman, Mark
Hardcover
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Loewen, James W.
Paperback
The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
Groom, Winston
Paperback
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
McNeill, J. R.
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Wise, James E.
Baron, Scott
Hardcover
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
Green, John
Hardcover
The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail
Dolin, Eric Jay
Hardcover
1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World
Ahamed, Liaquat
Hardcover
Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution
Kiernan, Denise
Hardcover
The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Ross, Steven J.
Hardcover
100 Bible Verses That Made America: Defining Moments That Shaped Our Enduring Foundation of Faith
Morgan, Robert J.
Paperback
The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Hardcover
True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--From Azure to Zinc Pink
Stamper, Kory
Hardcover
How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
Galer, Sophia Smith
Hardcover
The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Tiffany, Kaitlyn
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
Two Ships: Jamestown 1619, Plymouth 1620, and the Struggle for the Soul of America
Reynolds, David S.
Hardcover
American Pope: Leo XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City
Burke, Daniel
Detrow, Scott
Hardcover
Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age
Tabor, James M.
Hardcover
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic
Stewart, Lindsey
Hardcover
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
Sides, Hampton
Paperback
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
McElya, Micki
Hardcover
A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps
Elledge, Jonn
Paperback
The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World
Pancevski, Bojan
Hardcover
How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women
Venditozzi, Zoe
Mitchell, Claire
Paperback
No One's Coming: The Rogue Heroes Our Government Turns to When There's Nowhere Else to Turn
Hazzard, Kevin
Hardcover
Socialism: The Real History from Plato to the Present: How the Deep State Capitalizes on Crises to Consolidate Control [With Paperback Book]
Federer, William J.
Paperback
Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America
Loeffler, James
Hardcover
The Phantom: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill
Clavin, Tom
Drury, Bob
Hardcover
Captain's Dinner: A Shipwreck, an Act of Cannibalism, and a Murder Trial That Changed Legal History
Cohen, Adam
Hardcover
The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
Williams, Geoff
Hardcover
Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City
Brown, Kate
Hardcover
Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education
Headlee, Celeste
Hardcover
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within Us Slave Culture
Woodard, Vincent
Paperback
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
McGilchrist, Iain
Paperback
The Long Run: Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, and the Decade That Made the Marathon Cool
Dugard, Martin
Hardcover
How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession
Blackwell Baines, Caitlin
Hardcover