My World Cups: Introduction

Shortly before the 2026 World Cup I bought Jonathan Wilson's new book The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup. I'd read his Inverting the Pyramid on the history of football tactics which is more interesting than it sounds. I'm actually interested in football tactics. But apart from that it covers lots of colourful personalities and social and political history. I also read Wilson's fascinating book on the Charlton brothers, Bobby and Jackie, and have several others of Wilson's sitting in piles of books to read. Like Inverting the Pyramid, The Power and Glory, taking the world cups one at a time starting with the first in 1930, paints the characters involved, the social and political context, the state of the hosts and other countries involved and more. For many of the early world cups the involvement of countries was very partial, if only in some cases because some nations decided sailing halfway across the world just to potentially get knocked out soon after and have…