Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football

✍️ Jonathan Wilson

Tags: jonathan--wilson , sports , lang-en

This book was written in 2006, so there is a couple of information that did not age quite well (namely the promise of a better Russian football at the UEFA level following the CSKA Moscow win against Sporting CP in 2005). Nevertheless it is an enjoyable read peppered with some fascinating stories and characters from eastern european countries.

Jonathan Wilson, a journalist, traveled to countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria, Armenia, Russia, Yugoslavia and so on to watch some games and talk to football personalities (current and old). Throughout the book and we have a commom thread. Football in those eastern countries are on the decline, corruption is rampant, and the post-communist era led to the elevation of some shady people to positions of power in football. Another fact that led to this decline was the genesis of the Champions League in the 90s. Exactly during the same period these countries were reeling from the decline of their communist regimes. Wilson has a very british way to tell stories. Even someone who was never heard about him could deduce he as from England after reading a couple of paragraphs. Of course, all the analogies he makes uses England examples.

If the post-communist football in these countries are corrupt and used as money laundering by some shady people, during the communist era the corruption was quite the same. The main difference was that politics was heavily involved. The regime used sports as propaganda or, in some case, there was a clear “favorite team” of the leader. In the case of Soviet Union and Yugoslavia we could also see some nationalistic trends infused in football (Ucrania and Armenia vs Russia / Croatia vs Serbia vs Bosnia-Herzegovina vs Slovenia).

The book deserves 3,5 stars out of the 5 but I am rounding it down to 3 because I believe the book deserved a 20/25 page appendix listing the historical results of the leagues covered (league champions, cup champions, and UEFA competition highlights).