Finding the Game : Three Years, Twenty-five Countries, and the Search for Pickup Soccer

Many North American soccer fans and players may be now familiar with the film Pelada (it’s achieved somewhat of a cult status in the US soccer scene). If it left you yearning for more and wishing the movie was more Titanic in length, Pelada filmmaker, star and former Duke University and Santos FC (Brazil) player Gwendolyn Oxenham has your fix with Finding the Game : Three Years, Twenty-five Countries, and the Search for Pickup Soccer (now available at Amazon.com and other retailers).

Definitely one of the best soccer books that we’ve ever read, Finding the Game chronicles the making of Pelada from its conception to its release across the USA. Unseen in the movie, the book provides an eye-opening and at times shocking account of the devotion that the filmmakers possessed in creating  Pelada despite living in near poverty for the length of its filming.

It also carries an underlying theme that all players inevitable face — what happens when your organized soccer playing career is done? Given the soccer pedigree of the author, this is explored on a first hand basis in Finding the Game.

More than a “behind the scenes” book, Finding the Game captures the love of soccer in its purest form — the pickup / sweat / knockabout / picado or whatever it’s called in your neck of the woods — by detailing a global adventure in sport that only the most steadfast students of the game would even consider. It shows how these informal games can turn a bad day into a good day, how they can make you forget about everything else in life, and how they create a camaraderie among strangers across the world. Most importantly, Finding the Game reiterates the fact that no matter where or who you are and regardless of what level of skill you have, if you love to play the game then above all else in life, it becomes what you do and who you are — a soccer player.

If you love soccer, Finding the Game is the type of book that you won’t want to put down once you start reading it. Then you’ll want to read it again or pass it on to a friend. As we say when someone makes a defense-splitting pass on the soccer field, “Well done!”

Official Pelada Trailer from Rebekah Fergusson

About Gwendolyn Oxenham and FINDING THE GAME:

At sixteen, Gwendolyn Oxenham was the youngest Division I athlete in the history of the NCAA. A Duke captain, she made two All-ACC teams, led the Duke team in assists, and was named Most Inspirational Player. She played professionally for Santos FC in Brazil in 2005. When the future of professional women’s soccer in the U.S. became unclear, Gwendolyn took on an ambitious trip, immersing herself in pick-up soccer games in all kinds of communities–with all kinds of people–in over two-dozen countries. She played with a group of teenage girls in Palestine, on top of a skyscraper in Japan, in a small town in Hungary of only 250 residents, inside a Bolivian prison, and alongside women in hijab on a court in Tehran. While traveling, Gwendolyn also documented her experiences on film. Her documentary, Pelada, premiered in SXSW in 2010.

“Imbued with both the spirit of youth and the wistful longing of past travels, Oxenham’s narrative is a suitable companion to her film and a proud testament to her favorite game.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Soccer fans will love this, but anyone who enjoys shoestring travelogues will like it, too.”
— Booklist

“Through soccer, Gwendolyn Oxenham discovers and delights in the gifts, on and off the field, that ‘the beautiful game’ can bring. As she says, ‘the best games are marked by a failure to refrain.’ So are the best stories. Hers is proof.”–Alexi Lalas, National Soccer Hall of Fame inductee and analyst for ESPN and ABC Sports

Pelada from Rebekah Fergusson.

“I knew Gwendolyn Oxenham and her group had made a terrific documentary film, but it takes completely different skills to write a compelling book. She has achieved that feat here, fashioning a journey narrative about pickup soccer that’s filled with the details of a seasoned observer/adventurer. I enjoyed it from start to finish.”–Grant Wahl, New York Times bestselling author of The Beckham Experiment

“It’s not just an adventure that all of us would have liked to have had. Oxenham can write, too. A brave account of soccer as a universal language.”–Simon Kuper, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Soccernomics

“Finding the Game proves the reality of the phrase ‘Soccer is the world’s game’ and shows that the idea of playing a sport for the joy of it still exists. Gwendolyn and her friends used their passion for soccer to visit places and meet people that would have been unimaginable to most of us. Best of all, she allows the reader to become a part of the adventure.”
–Chuck Korr, coauthor of More Than Just a Game: Soccer vs. Apartheid: The Most Important Soccer Story Ever Told