Book Review: Pasión by Miguel Lourenço Pereira

A Journey to the Soul of Spanish Football

What’s It About?

An immersive exploration of Spanish football, Pasión delves into the sport’s vibrant diversity and its unifying power across Spain’s many regions. Blending road-trip storytelling with interviews, Pereira uncovers how football reflects and shapes Spain’s complex cultural, political, and social identity. From the legendary successes of its big clubs to clubs that represent local barrios, it reveals why Spain has become a continental football powerhouse and how the beautiful game is woven into the nation’s very soul

Sounds Good. Tell Me More!

“Football is not just a game in Spain—it’s a tapestry woven into the very fabric of its cities, its people, its history.”

That idea pulses through every chapter of Pasión, Miguel Lourenço Pereira’s deeply felt and richly textured journey through Spanish football. It is also what elevates it beyond many other attempts to cover the Spanish game. Pasión is something more intimate, more layered; a travelogue through a country where football is culture, identity, memory, and defiance.

Pereira does something particularly effective: before introducing us to the clubs, he builds the social and historical backdrop of each region. You feel the Andalusian rhythm before Sevilla steps onto the page. You grasp the political weight behind the Basque clubs before a ball is kicked. This approach makes the club stories resonate more deeply. They’re not isolated tales, but threads in a larger, more meaningful tapestry.

The writing is smooth and never weighed down by over-explanation. Even when recounting complex histories, Pereira strikes a balance that is rich in detail but never dry. His enthusiasm is unmistakable, but never overbearing. You can tell he loves this subject, and that warmth flows through the pages. There is an eagerness there for others to appreciate it as much as he does.

Perhaps what’s most admirable is the breadth of his focus. The giants — Real Madrid and Barcelona — are here, of course, but Pasión takes equal care with clubs like Deportivo, Valencia, and even those in the lower leagues. It’s a book that will leave you appreciating the wholeness of Spanish football not just the glamour at the top, but the soul found in smaller towns and lesser-known grounds.

Even So…

Given how dominant Spain have been in recent years—particularly with the women’s national team winning the World Cup in 2023 and producing some of the most technically gifted players in the world—it is slightly disappointing that Pasión makes no mention whatsoever of the women’s game. At a time when Spanish women’s football is reshaping the global landscape and drawing unprecedented attention both domestically and abroad, its omission feels like a missed opportunity to explore one of the most transformative aspects of modern Spanish football.

Final Score

Pasión should come with a trigger warning: it will leave you yearning to book the next flight to Spain purely to immerse yourself in its football. Miguel Pereira captures the raw emotion of the Spanish game with such vivid detail that you can’t help but become emotionally involved. This is a great book - unapologetically passionate and deeply informed - the spiritual heir to Phil Ball’s classic history of the Spanish game Morbo. Like Ball, Pereira understands that football in Spain is never just about the game; it’s about identity, politics, pride, and poetry.

Pasión: A Journey to the Soul of Spanish Footbal by Miguel Lourenço Pereira is available from Pitch Publishing Ltd. A review copy was provided by the publisher

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