‘Epic… Wilson writes captivatingly with humour…anyone with an interest in eastern European sport will be consulting this book for years to come’ FINANCIAL TIMES‘This fascinating and perceptive travelogue includes a fine collection of anecdotes too colourful for fiction’ SUNDAY TIMES‘A blissful book, lovingly and stylishly written’ DAILY TELEGRAPHFrom the war-ravaged streets of Sarajevo, where turning up for training involved dodging snipers’ bullets, to the crumbling splendour of Budapest’s Bozsik Stadium, where the likes of Puskas and Kocsis masterminded the fall of England, the landscape of Eastern Europe has changed immeasurably since the fall of communism. Jonathan Wilson has travelled extensively behind the old Iron Curtain, viewing life beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall through the lens of football. Where once the state-controlled teams of the Eastern bloc passed their way with crisp efficiency – a sort of communist version of total football – to considerable success on the European and international stages, today the beautiful game in the East has been opened up to the free market, and throughout the region a sense of chaos pervades. The threat of totalitarian interference no longer remains; but in its place mafia control is generally accompanied with a crippling lack of funds. In BEHIND THE CURTAIN Jonathan Wilson goes in search of the spirit of Hungary’s ‘Golden Squad’ of the early fifties, charts the disintegration of the footballing superpower that was the former Yugoslavia, follows a sorry tale of corruption, mismanagement and Armenian cognac through the Caucasuses, reopens the case of Russia’s greatest footballer, Eduard Streltsov, and talks to Jan Tomaszewski about an autumn night at Wembley in 1973…

The fascinating story of football in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Berlin WallAbout the AuthorJonathan Wilson is a columnist for the Guardian and the founder and editor of The Blizzard. Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics was Football Book of the Year in 2009 and was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. Seven of his other books have been shortlisted for football book of the year and he has also won the Premio Antonio Ghirelli in Italy. Angels with Dirty Faces did the double of football book and history book of the year at the Polish Sports Book Awards in 2018. He is a three-time recipient of the FSA Football Writer of the Year award and in 2023 was granted an honorary doctorate by the University of Sunderland. He writes for the Guardian and in 2011 founded The Blizzard, which he still edits. Follow him on Twitter: @jonawils Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid won the National Sporting Club Book of the Year award, and was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. His other books include Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football; Sunderland: A Club Transformed; The Anatomy of England: A History in Ten Matches; Nobody Ever Says Thank You, a critically acclaimed biography of Brian Clough; The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper; The Anatomy of Liverpool; Angels with Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina; and The Anatomy of Manchester United. He writes for the Guardian, Sports Illustrated and World Soccer, and he is the editor of The Blizzard. Follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jonawilsReviewsEpic… Wilson writes captivatingly with humour…anyone with an interest in eastern European sport will be consulting this book for years to come * FINANCIAL TIMES *A blissful book, lovingly and stylishly written * DAILY TELEGRAPH *With style and erudition, [Wilson] proves that football is a metaphor, an allegory, and much more than just a game * THE TIMES *There’s everything you needed to know about football and plenty that you didn’t… wittily observed travel writing. * WHEN SATURDAY COMES *This fascinating and perceptive travelogue includes a fine collection of anecdotes too colourful for fiction * SUNDAY TIMES *A terrific book — Henry Winter * DAILY TELEGRAPH *Football is centred squarely within a fascinating socio-political context… There is plenty of humour too * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *Compelling… he [Wilson] succeeds in going well beyond the lurid headlines, skilfully interweaving his own travel notes with forays into politics, culture and history * FOURFOURTWO *Enlightening * THE SCOTSMAN *An intriguing, entertaining history-cum-sports travelogue. **** * METRO *Wilson knows an immense amount about eastern European football and has crammed a lot into 300 pages. He writes well and has a lot of good stories * GUARDIAN *As absorbing as any post-war spy thriller * SUNDAY LIFE *Engrossing and funny travelogue-cum-social history * GLASGOW EVENING TIMES *Jonathan Wilson brilliantly plugs the gaps in our knowledge…an observant and witty guide to life in Eastern Europe * WATERSTONES BOOKS QUARTERLY *With style and erudition, [Wilson] proves that football is a metaphor, an allegory, and much more than just a game * THE TIMES *Enlightening * THE SCOTSMAN *Book InformationISBN 9780752879451Author Jonathan WilsonFormat PaperbackPage Count 352Imprint Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )Publisher Orion Publishing CoWeight(grams) 260gDimensions(mm) 196mm * 130mm * 26mm