Lisi’s updated edition on soccer’s most important competition is very similar to his earlier volumes in structure, content, and features. He again does an effective job of capturing the excitement of the world’s most popular sporting event by providing vivid accounts of individual games and crucial plays, along with profiles of its most accomplished athletes and their feats. Photographs enhance the fast-paced text, and a glossary of terms makes a wonderful primer for the novice and occasional fan. . . .[In addition], the two appendixes of World Cup statistics and records are almost 60 pages long. They catalog the scores of every game from the tournament’s history beginning in 1930 through the most current cup competition in 2014. . . .Lisi writes extensively on that event making this title a solid option even for those libraries that already own the earlier editions. Verdict: Readers and researchers of soccer literature will value the updated chapter and statistics on the 2014 World Cup found in this new edition.

Library Journal

This is an update of two previous editions, the first by the same author, with a new chapter on the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and revised statistics. Like the previous editions, this is a narrative history and not an encyclopedia with subject-oriented entries. There have been 20 World Cup tournaments so far, and Lisi covers them chronologically in ten chapters, with each of the last three events meriting its own chapter. The author describes the process leading to the choice of each host venue and highlights memorable and important events. He also includes a glossary that defines terms and about 50 pages of World Cup records and statistics. This volume can be read cover-to-cover or dipped into to gain insight on any particular World Cup, player, coach, administrator, or country. However it is used, it is a handy and helpful history of one of the world’s preeminent sporting events. Those who own an earlier edition would do well to replace it with this latest edition. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty/practitioners; general readers.

Choice Reviews

Clemente Lisi’s readable and detailed monograph, A History of the World Cup: 1930–2014, is a great addition to the canon of World Cup scholarship. . . .A History of the World Cup successfully toes that awkward middle line between academia and journalism; being an undoubted page-turner whilst also managing to delve into some of the more well-known and infamous World Cup events. . . .Perhaps the book’s greatest use, particularly in the United States, is to teach recent converts to soccer about the game’s rich history. . . .A History of the World Cup: 1930–2014 is a perfect place for newcomers to soccer history and World Cup history to get a detailed, informative, but readable account of one of the world’s biggest sporting events.

Sport in American History

A book that will be most appreciated by the avid soccer enthusiast.

Journal of Sport History

Clemente Lisi, a sports journalist, who has published widely-including via the Internet-has done a tremendous job in gathering all the pertinent facts associated with the World Cup into one volume. Starting with the first ever World Cup, in 1930, staged in Uruguay, the author takes the reader through all the successive championships, finishing his story in 2006 with the memorable Italy v. France final at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. He provides the reader with all the background detail associated with the selection process for hosting the tournaments; the changing rules of the event and the mediatization and commercialization of the event. . . . [A] splendid publication.

Sport in History