12/18/2017
African teens vying to become pros in elite soccer leagues find their dreams turning to dust in this alternately hopeful and dispiriting sports saga. Journalist Abbot follows the Football Dreams program, started in 2007 by coach Josep Colomer, a former youth scout for FC Barcelona, to engage 400,000 13-year-old boys from seven African nations in tryouts to find the two dozen best for an advanced soccer academy. To Colomer, this selection promised to uncover potential superstars; to the impoverished kids it promised a shot at million-euro contracts with top European clubs. The program did find superb players, and Abbot presents an interesting exploration of the science of soccer talent, delving into the athleticism, ball-handling skills, strategic game sense, and grit that create success; he suggests that these are honed in the pickup games that Africa’s soccer-mad youth delight in. Alas, few Dreamers made it to the pros thanks to exploitative coaches and agents, rigid FIFA rules, and their own duplicity: the best “13-year-olds” probably faked their IDs and were several years older, meaning they were not quite the prodigies they seemed and did not blossom as anticipated. Abbot’s narrative features vivid profiles, engrossing play-by-play, and a sobering lesson: bad breaks and cold business calculations sometimes trump ability in the making of champions. Photos. (Mar.)
"An exhilarating, at times heartbreaking, and ultimately unforgettable journey that lays bare the true human stakes of the world’s most popular game."
"Follows a group of teenagers plucked from the dirt fields of Africa and swept up in the international soccer machine for a chance at stardom."
"Every fan of international soccer must read The Away Game. It shows how soccer stars are made, and it captures the desperation and the pain behind African footballers’ search for fame and money in the Middle East and Europe."
"Engrossing. . . . A masterful account of the drama and science of scouting [and] a lively evocation of football mania in Africa."
"What a fantastic story: a soccer-themed mix of Hoop Dreams and The Sports Gene, told with surpassing empathy for the boys of Senegal, Ghana, and other African countries involved. Sebastian Abbot knows his soccer, but The Away Game is a tale with universal appeal to anyone who cares about the human condition."
"Masterfully weaves together the stories of boys from a renowned soccer academy in Doha in an illuminating narrative."
★ 2018-01-08
Exploring the fine line between opportunity and exploitation in the world of African youth soccer.In his first book, former AP Islamabad bureau chief Abbot writes about Football Dreams, a program aimed at finding future soccer superstars in Africa. In 2007, Josep Colomer, a scout and youth director from the legendary FC Barcelona, undertook an extensive journey through seven African countries for the purpose of tapping into the continent's rich soccer talent pool. Football Dreams would operate under the auspices of Qatar's Aspire Academy, an institution geared toward improving that country's soccer talent as the country approaches its hosting duties for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, sparing no expense along the way. Colomer and his associates identified a talented group of young 13-year-old African boys to bring to Qatar. The stated goal was to develop players who could achieve their dreams of playing at the highest level in Europe's professional leagues. However, the academy encountered problems due to the fact that the goals were not entirely clear and the methods not transparent. For every player who found a modicum of success, many more fell by the wayside. Abbot focuses on three of these young men while telling the stories of several others. He investigates the nature of talent development and the mysteries of the Qatari motivations, and he shows how the players, many from profoundly disadvantaged backgrounds, were exposed to almost unimaginably opulent surroundings at Aspire even as they were pulled in multiple directions by their club coaches back in Ghana and Senegal, their families, and the desires of officials at Aspire. Abbot also explores the problems with identifying the true ages of players and reveals how Aspire refused to allow some of its players to explore their possibilities in Europe. A solid storyteller, the author ensures that readers are invested in the dreams, lives, successes, and heartbreaks of these young men.A sobering look at the realities of the pursuit of big-time sporting opportunities.
