The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro Author:Joe McGinniss In the summer of 1996, Joe McGinniss, the author of such nonfiction bestsellers as The Selling of the President, Fatal Vision, Blind Faith, and The Last Brother, set out for the remote Italian village of Castel di Sangro, located deep within the forbidding and isolated region of the Abruzzo. — His goal was the spend a season with the village socc... more »er team, which only weeks before had accomplished the feat - hailed throughout Italy as a "miracle" - of winning promotion to the second-highest professional league in the land. Though Castel di Sangro had only five thousand inhabitants, its team would now compete against those from such cities as Genoa, Turin, Padua, and Venice in a fight to keep its miracle alive.
Almost immediately Joe McGinnis was embroiled in a small-town drama that had less to do with a game played by men kicking a ball than with hope, fear, love, loss, and almost unbearable suspense. He found himself, like everyone in the town, bursting with affection and anxiety for this quixotic and boisterous band of young Italian athletes. Through victories, losses, scandals, deaths, and hard lessons in the Italian way of sport, he found a story whose depth and power stunned him.
This book is his account of that year, a masterpiece of storytelling that transcends its particularts to embrace universal emotions. Written with passion, tenderness, and humor - plus an appreciation for the absurd - THE MIRACLE OF CASTEL DI SANGRO is an unforgettable portrait of Italy's people, its towns and cities, and it complicated, irrepressible spirit.« less