Králové střelců

The dictators know well that a sporting victory is as important as a battlefield victory. Polish reporter Zbigniew Rokita's entertaining and chilling journey into the history of football in the Soviet Union or the famous clashes between the empire's national team and its small satellites in the Eastern Bloc. This book will thrill sports fans and those who consider running on the pitch a waste of time.

Quentin Tarantino called the 1956 clash between the Soviet and Hungarian national water polo teams "the greatest untold story of all time". But he might as well have called the Lithuanian basketball champions and their journey to the 1992 Olympics, the first time they could play for their own free country. Their sponsors included the famous rock band Greatful Dead, and the Lithuanian team, wearing colourful batik jerseys, finished third. And did you know what the football World Cups of unrecognised countries look like? Looking at today's professional matches, few people remember that kicking a ball was supposed to pacify unruly British students in the 19th century.

Zbigniew Rokita does not deny his erudition in political science and history, so we also learn about why sport could become popular among workers - who gradually gained free time and could fill it with something. And football was the cheapest pastime in terms of necessary equipment. Or what role clubs played in shaping the identity of different neighbourhoods and national feeling. And how politicians and dictators were able to take advantage of that. After all, Russia has not only demonstrated its aggressive strategy towards Ukraine by seizing territory that does not belong to it, but also in football. Sport shows us that, with faith in oneself and one's own victory, the weaker can defeat the stronger.
It is published in the edition Cursed Reporters, translated by Martin Veselka.