Product details
- ISBN 9781836802785
- Dimensions: 160 x 240mm
- Publication Date: 11 May 2026
- Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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From Moore to Messi is the fascinating story of the Argentine national football team, and how it became a major symbol of national identity for the people of Argentina. You’ll learn about the team’s British and Irish roots at the turn of the 1900s, and how it soon included Italian and other immigrants, helping to forge a new distinctive Criollo identity through football. The book examines everything from how the team became a political tool under Juan Perón and various military dictatorships to the Argentine women’s team’s long struggle for recognition. Discover the mavericks who shone for Argentina in the pre-Maradona days, such as Harry Hayes, José Manuel Moreno and Oreste Corbatta. And find out about the national team’s lesser-known stories, including the player who died twice and the ‘ghost squad’ of unknowns abandoned for weeks in the Andes. The book concludes with a look at how La Scaloneta was constructed to help Lionel Messi finally become a world champion and build a team that the Argentine people could fall in love with again.
Mark Orton is a freelance writer and researcher with a particular interest in Argentine sport, having spent a year living in Buenos Aires in 2006–07. Mark is the author of the 2024 Lord Aberdare Prize-shortlisted Football and National Identity in Twentieth Century Argentina: La Nuestra and El Más Grande: The Story of River Plate, Argentina’s Biggest Club. He has also written about Argentine football for These Football Times and La Reina.
