City Psychos: From the Monte Carlo Mob to the Silver Cod Squad - Four Decades of Terrace Terror - Shaun Tordoff For me, Tifo's "How To Watch Football" was a bad case of high/misguided expectations that were not met at all. Why did I have such high expectations? The authors wanted the book to be useful for a broader audience, including students and scholars in the field of sport studies and the fans themselves, and I think that they succeeded with this. The complicated thing about tifo, and fan culture in general, is that it differs a lot between continents, countries, and even teams in the same national league. The global perspective might therefore give too small a representation of the tifo phenomenon. In that sense, the book is broad but perhaps does not go that deep. However, the book is a useful and fruitful introduction to this global phenomenon. Hopefully, more books with specific empirical investigations into this interesting and important topic and with further in-depth discussions are forthcoming, . In chapter three, Kassing and Meân describe the practical and symbolic representation of tifo. One of the most important values in tifo is that it should be authentic, produced by fans and financed through collection from other fans. Tifos communicate directly as a performance with an announcement and statement of attendance; they also communicate their fandom as a collective. Tifo can therefore be seen as both a material and a symbolic artefact for an imagined community, using Benedict Anderson’ concept. The authors claim that to understand the social rules and values of tifo, the symbolic and physical work needs to be understood and highlighted.

I was perplexed because the book was of course promoted on the Tifo YouTube channel, which regularly goes into much greater depth about tactics in particular. As such, I wrongly assumed that the target audience would already have a relatively good understanding of the game. The reality is, however, that I highly recommend Tifo's YouTube video content (in particular their Tifo IRL breakdowns of games) to all football fans. This book, however, I can only recommend to someone completely new to the sport, and even then I would probably say that "Inverting the Pyramid" is a much better "if you could only read one football book" candidate.As such, I had the book on the top of my Christmas wish list and was delighted to receive it as a present. I read it over the Christmas/New Year holidays and felt throughout that I was not really the intended target audience. Unfortunately, none of the chapters go into any depth at all. Having read a few brilliant football books such as Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, Zonal Marking: The Making of Modern European Football and The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines, I found myself learning almost nothing new. Some chapters bear promise, delving into the statistics of certain set pieces such as corners and throw-ins, but they merely whet the appetite rather than provide genuine new knowledge. Rivalry, described in chapter five, concerns how tifos are used to represent an identity for one’s own and other groups of fans. Nowadays, fan groups must confirm who they are and distance themselves from who they are not. One way of understanding this rivalry is by looking at the competition between groups in terms of who creates the most neat and creative tifos. Tifos sometimes express humiliation of other teams, groups, players, and historical events. However, they can also be very clever and display a bit of humour. While expressing themselves through tifos and distancing themselves from others, they are ‘doing’ their identity. According to the fans, this hopefully affects the rival fan groups’ ingroup identity negatively. Covering the key concepts, tactics and philosophies that are shaping the sport today, How to Watch Football reveals surprising new perspectives on familiar elements of gameplay, while highlighting lesser-known aspects of the industry and its history. The European Super League "launch" really damaged my love for football (Liverpool fan), and my relationship to my club is still irreparably damaged as a result, and I can't be bothered watching much football live anymore. Just highlights from Forest Green, Wrexham and Brighton on YouTube is fine for me. But Tifo Football and the Athletic means I still get to take part in the best sport in the world on a daily basis, and I'm thankful for that.

Kassing and Meân provide a rich and interesting insight into the phenomenon of tifo that has been missing in earlier discussions and studies. They intended the book to be interesting for students and scholars working in sports and for fans, which I think is possible since they give many examples and use readable language.Chapter six discusses and analyses political dimensions and common social movements within the landscape of football fandom. Fans, mainly ultras and hooligans, sometimes express extreme political views. Countries with a turbulent political history and ongoing conflicts show this more often. Due to male political ideologies, some fans become excluded, for example, women. The authors then ask the important question, who does the famous “people’s game” include? Furthermore, the information delivered by the book is all over the place. From career summaries of football's greatest contributors, brief explanations of xG, various tactic principles, but bam, then its a short trip to winter breaks and why teams fly into Middle East for pre-season, then a chapter on climate change, then explaining the offside rule, followed by a bit on merchandise income... It's trying to cover a LOT of stuff but fails to properly explain any of them. The title makes no sense as well, since you'd expect more emphasis on the "watching" part, yet I'm being served a chapter on how a €100m transfer fee for a player with €5m per year salary isn't the same as €100m fee and €10m salary for a different player!? Thanks to Jeffery W. Kassing and Lindsey J. Meân for an educational book about this important and interesting topic, and thanks to idrottsforum.org for letting me do this book review