“The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup” features essays on all 32 competing nations written by folks like novelists Tim Parks (who has lived in Italy for 25 years and is a rabid fan of Verona’s team and who writes the Italy chapter here), Robert Coover (Spain), Henning Mankell (Angola), John Lanchester (Brazil) and Caryl Phillips (Ghana); literary pop star Dave Eggers (who writes about the U.S.); and “Fast Food Nation” author Eric Schlosser (Sweden). Of course, no such book would be complete with a Nick “Fever Pitch” Hornby (England).
But, wait there’s more. There’s a recap of the 2002 tournament and editors Weiland and Wilsey, like good American sports fans, also dish up the numbers. There are stats of all kinds on the 32 nations and 12 pages of World Cup stats, including my favorite, a chart of all the World Cup winners since 1930 and the form of government in the winner’s country (1930, Uruguay, fragile democracy; 1950, Uruguay, emerging democracy; 1978, Argentina, military junta; 1986, Argentina, emerging democracy).
This list forms part of New Republic editor Franklin Foer’s afterword, “How to Win the World Cup,” which opens with the question, “if we were to take up arms (to guarantee a winning soccer team) what kind of government would we want to install?”
Another interesting chart lists the tournament referees, their ages, their home nations and what they do for a living (Lubos Michel is a car tire sales manager at home in Slovakia, Kyros Vassaras [pictured]is a Greek travel consultant and Mohamed Guezzaz teaches geography in Morocco).
On June 13, four days after the kick off of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Wilsey visits Schwartz Bookshop, 2559 N. Downer Ave. at 7 p.m. to talk about the book and the tourney. Admission is free.
“The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup” is published in paperback at $14.95.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
