Recounting the history of the South American game, with all its social and political backdrops, is some task - but Campomar achieves it in style . . . Government coups, gun-touting refs . . . it's all here.





[five stars]
FourFourTwo
Brilliant . . . [an] excellent study of football.
Mihir Bose
Inside World Football
A splendid history of Latin American football on both the continent and the international stage . . . This is football writing at its very best, epic on the pitch, socially aware off it.
Huffington Post
[Campomar] makes this case throughout, always keeping an eye on the global context of the sport. The scale of this book is essentially high level . . . Golazo! is an enlightening, lively work, one that never shortchanges the sport or the nations at its heart.
Barnes & Noble Review
[A] sweeping exploration of soccer intersecting with politics, history, economics and culture in forging a continent's passion.
Steven Goff
Washington Post
Comprehensive.
Simon Kuper
Financial Times
The best two books I've come across recently on the craze around the World Cup in Brazil from a Latin American viewpoint are in English: Andreas Campomar's Golazo, on how soccer built Latin America in general, and Goldblatt's Futebol Nation, about how Brazilians can't think about anything else, even when they try.
Ilan Stavans
New Republic
A celebration of this beautiful play and more a chronicle of how sport, politics and culture have intersected and influenced each other across the region.
Economist
A fascinating read.
Sunday Mirror
!Golazo! is a timely, intelligent and entertaining account of the development of football in Latin America . . . this is a readable and incisive history, a serious football book . . . the main strength of !Golazo! lies in the way its perspective extends to the politics - real and mythologised - that lie beyond the sport.
Jimmy Burns
Tablet
Gripping social history.
Daily Telegraph
Lively history . . . Perfectly timed.
Sport
Absorbing and entertaining.
Literary Review
This year's World Cup has inspired a number of notable books, among them !Golazo! by Andreas Campomar.
Richard Williams
Guardian
Campomar effectively brings out the colour and passion for the game, its evocative language, its artistic power and its sometimes-martial ugliness . . . Fine, scintillating history.
Kirkus
A compelling account of how football became a force in Latin America with an impact far beyond the pitch, helping forge national identity and fuelling regional rivalries.
Chris Maume
Independent
Extra-ordinarily ambitious.
Jonathan Wilson
New Statesman
Perfection, pride, politics and punch-ups. The South American way of football has never been more readable.
John Crace
Guardian