I came to this book with the enormous benefit of 18 years of hindsight from which to criticize or challenge some of the suppositions within. And while I tried—I really did—to look at the book as a product of its time, it was difficult for me to dismiss "what I know now" in favor of "what I think I knew then".

With that in mind, I think Foer did a good job of intriguing me on several of the stories described. The Jewish soccer team in Austria before the second World War. The relationship between the shah's family and soccer in Iran before the Revolution. Serbian paramilitaries that grew out of supporters groups. Each of these had me deep in a Wikipedia hole within a few minutes of finishing the chapter, which has always been a sure sign that the author has gotten my attention.

But the stories that were more contemporary felt less compelling, perhaps because, again, I have the benefit of an additional 18 years. Foer offered a caveat of his own fandom of Barcelona on more than one occasion, but it felt throughout the chapter as though he wasn't treating Barcelona's "galactico" ambitions with the same disdain as he did Real Madrid, Manchester United, and Juventus. The chapter on American politics and their relationship with soccer likewise felt incomplete, as though there wasn't quite enough information for a full-fledged chapter. Using Jim Rome as an example of right-wing xenophobia of soccer: not a problem. Claiming there are similar left-wing anti-soccer figureheads without offering a concrete example: a problem.

All in all, I'm glad I read it, though I think the title is a bit of a misnomer. It's not so much how soccer explains the world, merely how some phenomena of the past hundred years have analogues in the soccer world. I imagine a similar book could be written about incidents from any popular sport in that time.