Read Of The Week (Sept 11 to Sept 17)

Pele once said: ‘The World Cup is a very important way to measure the good players and the great ones. It is a test of a great player’. Indeed, greatness goes hand-in-hand with the grandeur of this sporting event. The Most Incredible World Cup Stories traces the exhilarating journey of the biggest sporting contest on earth through time immemorial — from its genesis to its more recent glories — with tales of grit, spirit and heroics at every turn of its long journey. For instance, did you know that the cup went missing twice, once in 1966 and then in 1983, the last disappearance being permanent! To avoid such unpleasant surprises, FIFA determined that the new cup that was put into play in 1974, designed and created by the Italian goldsmith Silvio Gazzaniga, would not be delivered to the winning country. Since then only a replica has been awarded to the winner and the original is kept in the entity’s offices in Zurich, Switzerland.

Far from doing any number crunching, this book digs up narratives that became eternal subtexts in the event's phenomenal journey, where a game became a political statement, pride got tamed, revenge proved sweet and humiliation was often cherished. The author Luciano Wernicke has worked in the sports media in Argentina and has written several books on sports.