As a young man Joe McGinniss shot to literary stardom with The Selling of the President, his account of the 1968 American Election. He is the author of the international bestsellers BLIND FAITH and FATAL VISION.
McGinnis is a rare bird, an American who likes football (please note, not soccer). As one who has recently had his eyes opened to the beautiful game he writes with the newly converted (if not always the accuracy) as he follows Castel Di Sangro, a tiny football team to the heights of SerieB (the second division) in Italy. This is a fantastic achievement, even more so because of the strange characters populating the club. The chairman is an inveterate womaniser, a player and his wife are imprisoned for possession of cocaine, two players die in a car crash and a referee is lynched. It's an incredible tale, well told (despite one or two stylistic irritations) which reads like fiction but is a genuine football romance. (Kirkus UK)