Africa United: Soccer, Passion, Politics, and the First World Cup in Africa

My impression of Africa United was that throughout Africa’s history, there has been an everlasting co-existence between politics and soccer. Soccer has brought Africa together in many ways that politics couldn’t do. Soccer has also helped fund many different things in economies and politics because it proves to be a large intake of money every time a game is held. My impression of the book was also influenced by the fact that many kids put aside school work to be star soccer players. At an early age, children see that soccer can fulfill their wildest dreams and can help them excel at life. This could lead to a decrease in education, but an increase in the enrollment in soccer academies. Enrollment in soccer and academics is a better decision than drugs, crime, or war. My impression overall was that soccer is an amazing thing in Africa and that it can help heal anything.Steven Bloomfield’s style of writing was very unique and informative. The way that he writes lets you see all that he sees and all that he experiences. Sometimes, I felt that I was interviewing soccer players and coaches with him. He can have you feeling contempt and at ease at one point when he is discussing soccer, and at the next point he can have you on the edge of your seat, waiting to see if the armed guard is friendly or not. He also showed compassion through his writing when he writes about the love that people show towards to soccer. That kind of compassion is also shown when he talks about a battle being called off because there was a soccer game on TV. Steven Bloomfield is a great writer and his writing kept me engaged throughout the whole book.

I am ecstatic about this book. Intelligently written and proof that Africa is the best place in the world! I truly believe that some of the world's best football players hail from africa, and this book helps me to see why! I was absolutely thrilled at the service I received with this purchase. I found navigating about the site to be quite simple enough, and there is ample information available to help you decide. Thank you for the brilliant read once again! Cheers!

In Africa United, Steve Bloomfield, a Kenya-based news correspondent, travels around Africa in search of connections between the continent of Africa and the world's (except for the USA) favorite sport. The impetus for this book came about upon the announcement of South Africa as the host nation of the FIFA World Cup in 2010. After narrowly losing the bid for 2006, South Africa rallied to become the first African nation to host the World Cup, a feat for a continent which has yet to host a major international sporting event, such as the Olympics. This sparked a movement across South Africa and the rest of the continent as a "unified Africa," fueling an already fervent love for the sport among Africans.Steve Bloomfield starts from Egypt in his journey down the continent, through some of the "best and worst" teams in Africa - Sudan, Chad, Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Cote D'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Zimbabwe - before arriving in South Africa at the beginning of the World Cup. Bloomfield notes that he couldn't cover all the countries of Africa in his introduction, but oddly enough, his "best and worst" happened to omit three of the six African teams who qualified for the World Cup; Cameroon, Algeria, and Ghana, leaving me to question his judgment of "best and worst" - aren't these three countries among the "best," who qualified in the same way that Cote D'Ivoire and Nigeria did? about my review here: http://wp.me/p3Aqzs-ch Read more

Very definitely worth picking up for any soccer literati fan. The subtitle pretty much sums it all up. The author is an Aston Villa fan so it does help his perspective in understanding both the glory and struggles of African soccer nations.Especially enjoyable is learning about how much power players have to affect change. Basically, Cote d'Ivoire and current Chelsea star Didier Drogba stops a war. I won't spoil it for those who want to read how he does that but it shows the power of sport to change society is alive and well in Africa...well, at least in West Africa it is.The author gets into some of the lesser nations and it's a well-rounded book. Just don't expect it to encompass the ENTIRE continent. That's too much of a daunting task. Whether he focuses on the big events (World Cup 2010 in South Africa) or some pretty obscure rivalries (Sudan v. Chad), he makes the soccer scene really come alive.Also, check out the author's blog for a taste of his writing style:[...]

The book "Africa United" by Steve Bloomfield who explains the impact of the connection of politics and soccer on the continent of Africa. Bloomfield describes the hate towards different countries/ethnic groups in the competition of soccer. But he also says how soccer has helped unify the very diverse continent of Africa. The author helps the reader feel sympathetic towards Africa. My impression after reading was Africa has a strong love for the sport of soccer but lacks global respect, like Latin American teams. I believe that was the main purpose of what Bloomfield was trying to explain. Going on Bloomfield's purpose, he does an excellent job portraying it throughout the book. He uses his personal experiences with people he meets on his journey, making the read thrilling. Bloomfield was good at keeping his facts straight and detailed. Although, this could be very overwhelming. It was hard keeping track of all the name and places. "Africa United" helped me better understand the sport of soccer at a international level. I found the book interesting due to all the information on soccer. I would not recommend this book if you do not have an interest in the sport of soccer or African politics.

A little dated as it deals with the period prior to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, but it is still an interesting view of Africa from a footballing perspective. From Cape to Cairo, the author shows that despite everything, the game has the ability to be a unifying factor everywhere.It would nice to get a feel as to how football has developed more recently in the countries the author visited, but the book is still a worthwhile read.

A superb read.Highly recommended,

Steve Bloomfield writes well, and his intimate knowledge of Africa is very clear without being pushed to the fore inappropriately. There are some very fine sections - I was particularly touched by his description of amputee football, for example - and he makes a number of points that would not be out of place in an academic account of Africa's progress. He avoids the trap of concentrating on the countries that are already well known, and he amply demonstrates the fervour felt for the game even in places that have been starved of success for some years.His descriptions of corruption tend to be in the past tense. I cannot imagine that he has no current examples, but it is understandable that he might not wish to share those, given that parts of Africa are apparently very dangerous places to be, more so for foreigners than for locals.I have two small reservations. The accounts of matches are sometimes in the style of a fanzine and jar with the rest of the writing. That is just a minor point, because they take up a small part of the book. The other doubt relates to the decision to write about Africa country by country rather than thematically. This means that, because the same issues arise in multiple places, there is inevitably some repetition, whereas a theme could compare countries, uniting or distinguishing as he thought fit. But this is a small quibble, and I'm not even sure I would have preferred a book written that way.A book well worth reading for its insight and style.

Steve Bloomfield's book is a well-written, easily-digestible run through some of Africa's nations, using the narrative of football to provide a context for the political goings-on in those countries.It's a concept that could easily appear a little glib or patronising, but his journalistic style, which combines reportage with historical background, steers clear of either.He is able to describe the progress or otherwise of a football team in a match or over a campaign in the same style as the progress of a country towards (or more usually away from) democracy and fairness, and talk about how their national teams can at the very least offer a hope that many African nations, with their uneasy histories and tribal divisions, can see that there are ways of joining in a common cause.The football reporting is done well and not, in my opinion, so over-detailed as to be off-putting for those not aren't very familiar with the game to be overwhelmed.But most importantly, the football stories provide a bit of light relief and hope amongst the tales of, largely, mis-managed and corrupt nations, often at war with themselves or neighbours, and whose people are almost permanently unable to avoid being downtrodden.It's what makes this book on a par with Richard Dowden's excellent, more detailed and very sobering 'Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles', which chapter after chapter details the often-depressing political and social histories of many African nations, but not always with the element of hope and lighter moments which Bloomfield brings to his book.Important and well-written though it is, Dowden's work can make taxing bedtime reading, whereas Bloomfield's is a much easier task, not because he shies away from the dark side of what goes in in various nations, but through the hope and occasional humour of episodes involving those countries' national sides.It's also a great way of engaging the reading football fan with African issues in the context of the current World Cup.There is a growing consensus, supported by those such as Dowden and Jonathan Dimbleby's recent TV series on Africa, that the continent needs to be understood as a more complex beast than the one portrayed by TV news reports of refugee camps and starving children. African music is one way of showing this, and the its growign popularity should be welcomed, but success of its football teams should be another. The message is simple - given a chance ordinary African people can develop skills and talents which compare in quality withteh West, but with their own stylistic and cultural twists.As I write the host nation are preparing to take on France to try and make the second round. Let's hope the miserable French side do their duty, roll over and allow Africa a little more hope...

Maybe this excellent book from the pen of former Independent correspondent Steve Bloomfield could also carry the alternative suffix `How Football Saved Africa', as, after reading this, that is what appears to be holding the continent together. Taking a trip through thirteen of the 50 or so countries that make up Africa, Bloomfield has mixed the `big guns' of Egypt and Nigeria with those teams that will be perennial strugglers when it comes to qualifying for their own Africa Cup of Nations, such as Chad, Rwanda and Somalia, a country that had the shortest ever World Cup campaign lasting just 90 minutes in losing their pre-qualifying game to gain admission into the qualifying group stages.However, this isn't a book solely about football. A large percentage of the pages are taken up with the politics of each featured country and how it affects the `beautiful game'. It may sound as if it's a cure for insomnia; it isn't. It is actually very informative in that department, explaining the tribal systems that make up a nation's infrastructure (or lack of it in most instances). It also shows what can happen to a nation's football team when the president/dictator decides to interfere, which is nearly always the case.What is also unavoidable is how incompetent those same people appear to be. Whilst they are prepared to take their country's natural resources for their own gain, the rest of the nation they claim to love suffers from a chronic lack of investment, football included. (When the team wins, they take the credit; if the team loses, the manager is told not to return.) The redeeming feature is the Premier League. The tentacles of that monster may be inescapable, and mostly to the detriment of local teams, but the African players that ply their trade in England are the ones that have managed to do what no politician has; to unite a country.Reading this makes you realise that, though football is only a game and there are more important things in life, to most in this book, football really is all they have. It's just a shame that it takes a World Cup tournament to be held on the continent for stories such as this to be made available to a wider public. I mean, how many would read this, or how many books would even be written, if South Africa were not the host nation?