This review of a very worthwhile book appeared in issue 162 of TRUE FAITH (so fairly recently) – another tome which will inform you of another football culture through the eyes of a fan on the spot in a an absolutely football mad city, country and continent. 

To the likely consternation of any proper historians reading this old toffee, I really enjoy football books as a means of understanding the history of a country. Jonathan Wilson’s Angels With Dirty Faces sits on my book-shelves and serves as an excellent journey through the modern industrial development of Argentine politics, economics, society and of course football over the last 150 years. It provides a brilliant insight into a country which I hadn’t known that much about beyond corned beef and Diego Maradona. Similarly, JUVE (Herbie Sykes) reviewed here tells the tale of the development of one of the world’s foremost football institutions but similarly Italian’s development over a turbulent 120 years. There are others I’m sure you can name in that canon.

I should say Hylland’s book isn’t particularly a historical tract but more a rough guide style tour of Argentinian but also South American football and the people who play and support it. But mainly the people who support it.

I particularly enjoyed the historical backdrops to the development of the main Argentine football clubs and what has driven them. There was a good reference to San Lorenzo, the club favoured by Pope Francis and our very own former curly-haired Capitano, Fabrzio Coloccini.

I don’t know, judge for yourself but as a neutral I felt myself drawn to San Lorenzo as a club rather than los millonarios (Club Atlético River Plate) or the confected street-cred club of Club Atlético Boca Juniors.

No-one can doubt however, the derby between the two Buenos Aires clubs is de-facto the El Classico of the entire continent. That’s something you knew already.

No-one can accuse of Hylland of  a lack of energy and curiosity in the time he lived and worked in the Argentine capital. It seemed as though he spent his every waking hour going to a match of some sort, planning going to a game, getting tickets for a game and talking about a game.

I enjoyed the references to local foods and beers which was evocative of the culture he absorbed. For a football fan, Hylland has had the ultimate football road trip, traversing the football obsessed nations of Argentina (which he plainly fell in love with), Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil and probably some I’ve missed.

Hylland’s adventures are accompanied by weed, beer, several relationships with back-packers and friendships built around football. It’s a hard life but someone had to do it, Chris!

I enjoyed this book but I felt it could have benefitted from less of a scatter gun approach to all of the football he embraced and there were several books in one here. We knew a little of Hylland’s personal back-story as an Arsenal fan of Norwegian extraction from what I’m guessing was a comfortable middle-class background who moved between personal relationships and left them rather unexplained.

As someone who has not done a fraction of the travelling I’d have loved to have done in my life, I did feel envy at the sense of freedom and courage Hylland had to lead the life he created for himself. I did sigh a few times at the time I wasted in my early 20s compared to this lad.

I’d like in some way to trace his steps in South America but that will have to wait until retirement but I couldn’t do 12 hours on a bus traversing Argentina and Chile these days.

Michael Martin @TFMick1892