Soccer fans: Eduardo Galeano is required reading
Eduardo Galeano became the talking point when Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez met up in a very anticipated encounter at the OAS.
Chavez thrust Eduardo Galeano's "The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" into the hands of Obama. This of course is a vast improvement from the Venezuelan president's invocation of the "devil" being present when George W Bush addressed the UN. Chavez with this gesture at least acknowledges that the present US president is capable of reading more complex books than The Pet Goat.
However for us soccer lovers, Galeano's Soccer in Sun and Shadow should be familiar reading. It gives great insights with a lyricality similar to that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and pulls no punches when it comes to the unpalatable truths of the politics that distort the beautiful game.