Dark Goals
How History's Worst Tyrants Have Used and Abused the Game of Soccer
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Dark Goals
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Narrated by:
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Gavin Louden
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By:
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Luciano Wernicke
About this listen
Soccer has been the world’s most popular sport for the last century, and an irresistible game for political and social leaders seeking shortcuts to the hearts of their people. Some of the prime movers of the 20th century, including Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Evita and Juan Peron, Augusto Pinochet, and the drug lord Pablo Escobar, have found in soccer a magnificent partner for enflaming patriotism, manipulating the masses, prolonging their stays on the throne, justifying aberrant acts, or simply recreating the old Roman “bread and circuses” (in many cases without the bread). They have tried to turn the beautiful game into something useful. Sometimes it worked, momentarily, but as renowned sports journalist Luciano Wernicke writes in this fascinating and original audiobook, the game and its glories have survived them all.
©2022 Luciano Wernicke (P)2022 Sutherland House BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4 out of 5 stars 32
Once upon a time football was run by modest local businessmen. Today it is the plaything of billionaire oligarchs, staggeringly wealthy from oil and gas, from royalty, or from murkier sources. But who are these new masters of the universe? Where did all their money come from? And what do they want with our beautiful game? In The Billionaires Club James Montague delves deeper than anyone else has dared, to tell this story for the first time.
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1 out of 5 stars
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So boring! There is no cohesive story
- By Patrick Johnson on 02-15-22
By: James Montague
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What's My Name, Fool?
- Sports and Resistance in the United States
- By: Dave Zirin
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
Here Edgeofsports.com sportswriter Dave Zirin shows how sports express the worst, as well as the most creative and exciting, features of American society. Zirin explores how Janet Jackson's Super Bowl flash-time show exposed more than a breast, why the labor movement has everything to learn from sports unions, and why a new generation of athletes is no longer content to "play one game at a time" and is starting to get political.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting read
- By sosnows8 on 08-16-20
By: Dave Zirin
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The Unfathomable Ascent
- How Hitler Came to Power
- By: Peter Ross Range
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
On the night of January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler leaned out of a spotlit window of the Reich chancellery in Berlin, bursting with joy. The moment seemed unbelievable, even to Hitler. After an improbable political journey that came close to faltering on many occasions, his march to power had finally succeeded. While the path of Hitler's rise has been told in books covering larger portions of his life, no previous work has focused solely on his eight-year climb to rule: 1925-1933.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The best account of Hitler’s rise to power.
- By Deal W. Hudson on 08-26-20
By: Peter Ross Range
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Invictus
- Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation
- By: John Carlin
- Narrated by: Gideon Emery
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 88
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Story5 out of 5 stars 88
After being released from prison and winning South Africa’s first free election, Nelson Mandela presided over a country still deeply divided by 50 years of apartheid. His plan was ambitious if not far-fetched: use the national rugby team, the Springboks—long an embodiment of white-supremacist rule—to embody and engage a new South Africa as they prepared to host the 1995 World Cup.
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5 out of 5 stars
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More detail than the film
- By Neale on 03-04-13
By: John Carlin
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Do Not Disturb
- The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad
- By: Michela Wrong
- Narrated by: Michela Wrong
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Story5 out of 5 stars 123
We think we know the story of Africa’s Great Lakes region. Following the Rwandan genocide, an idealistic group of young rebels overthrew the brutal regime in Kigali, ushering in an era of peace and stability that made Rwanda the donor darling of the West, winning comparisons with Switzerland and Singapore. But the truth was considerably more sinister.
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4 out of 5 stars
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What is true and what isn't?
- By Buretto on 11-30-21
By: Michela Wrong
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The Barcelona Complex
- Lionel Messi and the Making—and Unmaking—of the World's Greatest Soccer Club
- By: Simon Kuper
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story5 out of 5 stars 106
FC Barcelona is not just the world’s highest grossing sports club, it is simply one of the most influential organizations on the planet. At last count, it had approximately 214 million social media followers, more than any other sports club except Real Madrid CF—and by one earlier measure, more than all 32 NFL teams combined. It has more in common with multinational megacompanies like Netflix or small nation-states than it does with most soccer teams. Journalist Simon Kuper tells the story of how FC Barcelona became the most successful club in the world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic
- By steve finkelstein on 10-27-23
By: Simon Kuper
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The Fight of Our Lives
- My Time with Zelenskyy, Ukraine's Battle for Democracy, and What It Means for the World
- By: Iuliia Mendel
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya, Iuliia Mendel
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story5 out of 5 stars 53
In this frank and moving inside account, Zelenskyy’s former press secretary tells the story of his improbable rise from popular comedian to the president of Ukraine. Mendel had a front row seat to many of the key events preceding the 2022 Russian invasion. From attending meetings between Zelenskyy and Putin and other European leaders, visiting the front lines in Donbas, to fielding press inquiries after the infamous phone calls between Donald Trump and Zelenskyy that led to Trump’s first impeachment.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Just Great!
- By Jim Kirby on 09-20-22
By: Iuliia Mendel
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Erdogan Rising
- The Battle for the Soul of Turkey
- By: Hannah Lucinda Smith
- Narrated by: Hannah Lucinda Smith
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4 out of 5 stars 51
Everyone has heard of Erdogan: Turkey’s bullish, mercurial president is the original postmodern populist. Around the world, other strongmen are now following the path that he has blazed. For the first time, Erdogan Rising tells the inside story of how a democracy on the fringe of Europe has succumbed to dictatorship. Hannah Lucinda Smith, Turkey correspondent with The Times of London, has witnessed all that has befallen Turkey and the wider region since the onset of the Arab Spring.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Overall fascinating profile of Erdogan’s Turkey
- By Saul M on 09-18-20
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The Compatriots
- The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad
- By: Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
The history of Russian espionage is soaked in blood, from a spontaneous pistol shot that killed a secret policeman in Romania in 1924 to the attempt to poison an exiled KGB colonel in Salisbury, England, in 2017. Russian émigrés have found themselves continually at the center of the mayhem. Russians began leaving the country in big numbers in the late 19th century, fleeing pogroms, tsarist secret police persecution, and the Revolution, then Stalin and the KGB - and creating the third-largest diaspora in the world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book. Extremely detailed history of the USSR
- By M. Gordon on 03-03-20
By: Andrei Soldatov, and others
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The Eagles of Heart Mountain
- A True Story of Football, Incarceration, and Resistance in World War II America
- By: Bradford Pearson
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
In the spring of 1942, the United States government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona and sent them to incarceration camps across the West. Nearly 14,000 of them landed on the outskirts of Cody, Wyoming, at the base of Heart Mountain. Behind barbed wire fences, they faced racism, cruelty, and frozen winters. Trying to recreate comforts from home, they established Buddhist temples and sumo wrestling pits. Kabuki performances drew hundreds of spectators — yet there was little hope.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I wanted to like it
- By Happy Mountain on 06-04-22
By: Bradford Pearson
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The Invention of Russia
- From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War
- By: Arkady Ostrovsky
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 207
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 180
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 181
The end of Communism and breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of euphoria around the world, but Russia today is violently anti-American and dangerously nationalistic. So how did we go from the promise of those days to the autocratic police state of Putin's new Russia? The Invention of Russia reaches back to the darkest days of the Cold War to tell the story of the fight for the soul of a nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sad Story of Russia's Abandonment of Liberalism
- By Amazon Customer on 10-03-16
By: Arkady Ostrovsky
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The Shadow Commander
- Soleimani, the US, and Iran’s Global Ambitions
- By: Arash Azizi
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
Until his assassination by US drone strike in January 2020, commander Qassem Soleimani was one of the most powerful men in Iran and the military spearhead for Iranian foreign policy, enacting the wishes of the country's Supreme Leader in the region. A widely popular but also feared maverick operator, he helped to establish the Islamic Republic as a major force in the Middle East, with interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. This was a long way from where he began as a youth, living on the margins in a country ruled by a monarch supported by the United States.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Rather disappointing
- By Aliz on 01-19-21
By: Arash Azizi
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How to Be a Dictator
- The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century
- By: Frank Dikötter
- Narrated by: Jack Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 167
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 140
No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffices in the long term. A tyrant who can compel his own people to acclaim him will last longer. The paradox of the modern dictator is that he must create the illusion of popular support. Throughout the 20th century, hundreds of millions of people were condemned to enthusiasm, obliged to hail their leaders even as they were herded down the road to serfdom.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Worth a listen
- By Amazon Customer on 12-06-19
By: Frank Dikötter
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Assad or We Burn the Country
- How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria
- By: Sam Dagher
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 19 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 264
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 220
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 215
In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising - an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis. Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged....
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2 out of 5 stars
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Good until final chapter
- By Amazon Customer on 02-24-21
By: Sam Dagher
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Bobby Fischer Goes to War
- How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match
- By: David Edmonds, John Eidinow
- Narrated by: Sam Tsoutsouvas
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 238
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 157
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 159
In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the United States and the cold war at a pivotal point, two men, the Soviet world chess champion Boris Spassky and his American challenger Bobby Fischer, met in the most notorious chess match of all time. Their showdown in Reykjavik, Iceland, held the world spellbound for two months with reports of psychological warfare, ultimatums, political intrigue, cliffhangers, and farce to rival a Marx Brothers film.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Engrossing
- By Gene on 02-09-05
By: David Edmonds, and others