The Cup of Death

Pedagogical features in the text include:

No rogue regime ever needed its evildoing professionally reframed more urgently than Greater Berzerkistan, whose president-for-life Trff Bmzklfrpz (pronounced Ptklm) needs to spin a recent round of ethnic cleansing. Fortunately, the pariah state (and its 50-hole golf course, built overnight by Kurds and Jews) borders Iran, a fact that K Street uberlobbyist Duke is retained to parlay into a major U.S. arms package.

Meanwhile, across town, the crumbling of the newspaper industry crushes Rick Redfern's hope of continuing employment. After 35 years at the Washington Post, he is ejected into the blogosphere, where his prose now battles it out with that of 1,186,783,465 rivals, including Roland Hedley, who takes the art of Twittering to a new self-reverential low.

Truly, everyone in Doonesburyland is struggling to adapt. While white Washington insiders scramble to acquire some African American friends, longtime black conservative Clyde schemes to score Obama's Blackberry number, Clinton-era Dems are forced to attend the president-elect's No Drama School, and Jimmy Thudpucker once again reboots his career--this time as a cell phone ring-tone artist.

No one ever said change was pretty.

In 1974 Zaire’s football team were summoned into a room in their West German hotel and told that if they lost to Brazil by more than three goals the following day they would never see their families again. In this astonishing book Jon Spurling has travelled the world to scratch beneath the glossy, confetti-strewn surface of the world’s biggest sporting event to uncover its dark secrets.In this astonishing book Jon Spurling has travelled the world to scratch beneath the glossy, confetti-strewn surface of the world’s biggest sporting event to uncover its dark secrets. What lengths did Argentina's right-wing military junta really go to in order to ensure their national team won the World Cup at home in 1978? Why did Idi Amin instruct Uganda’s footballers to “break the teeth” of their Tanzanian counterparts in a World Cup qualifier? What really happened during the infamous ‘Soccer War’ between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969? Which country’s players were sent to work in a chicken-plucking factory as punishment for a poor result during qualifying in 1994?Part travelogue, part history, Death or Glory is based on more than 100 exclusive interviews with players, supporters, writers and team officials. Its 16 chapters take you on a fascinating journey through sport, politics, conflict and civil strife that ultimately reveals the astonishing power of the world’s greatest sporting event – a power that goes far beyond a few games of football every four years.

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