Football is never clear cut, only good or only bad. The sport is always very diverse and a sick man (a fan) is largely fueled by hope. Yes, the last match was terrible; yes, the season is lost; yes, my favourites angered me again; but tomorrow would be different. Every new match is a hope renewed against reason. The sick man goes to matches and continues reading match reports, and collects. And he is not alone… his cravings are continuously fed. Sometimes by unusual sources. Football literature is an obvious supply for the addicted. With the years passing, I became somewhat skeptical and selective when it comes to football books.
I dislike and avoid two types of football books – the histories of the World Cup and players autobiographies. The histories concentrate on the most recent tournaments. I rather read about World Cup 1938 in detail – the World Cup 2006 I remember painfully well… it was not as great as the upbeat pages of the book tell me. But the older the tournament, the less pages it gets.
Players fail to interest me when writing of themselves. Few of them have to say anything about great games and the opposition. I want to read about football, not about weddings, vacations, and purchases of cars and houses.
Once the above categories are eliminated, there is a sea of football books. Some good, some not so. However, two books I recommend highly:

and

Why? Read the books and you will know for yourself.