The Striker and the Clock
Autor Georgia Cloepfilen Limba Engleză Paperback – 17 iul 2025
Subliniem, încă de la primele pagini, perspectiva rară pe care Georgia Cloepfil o aduce asupra sportului de performanță: cea a unei rătăcitoare profesioniste care își transformă corpul într-un instrument de precizie, în timp ce spiritul îi rămâne ancorat în poezia jocului. The Striker and the Clock nu este doar un jurnal sportiv, ci o meditație lirică despre obsesie și despre modul în care timpul devine cel mai redutabil adversar al unui atlet. Notăm cu interes felul în care autoarea fragmentează narațiunea între triumful de pe teren și izolarea antrenamentelor solitare, unde repetiția devine o formă de asceză.
Putem afirma că forța acestui volum rezidă în onestitatea cu care este descrisă viața „nomadă” a fotbalului feminin, purtându-ne din Coreea până în Suedia. Nu suntem martorii unei glorii facile, ci ai unei lupte constante cu epuizarea și cu iminența încheierii unei cariere scurte. Cine a apreciat portretul din Good for a Girl de Lauren Fleshman va găsi aici aceeași profunzime biografică, aplicată însă unui context global, unde fotbalul devine un limbaj universal, dar și o sursă de exil autoimpus. Cloepfil reușește să traducă senzația fizică a jocului — cele o mie de atingeri zilnice ale mingii — într-o proză elegantă, care amintește de disciplina unui artizan.
Spre deosebire de analizele sociologice din Football, Family, Gender and Identity, lucrarea de față rămâne profund personală și intimă. Este o scrisoare de dragoste dureroasă adresată fotbalului, scrisă de cineva care înțelege că frumusețea unui gol este întotdeauna umbrită de ceasul de pe tabelă care nu se oprește niciodată.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 1526668521
Pagini: 208
Dimensiuni: 138 x 206 x 32 mm
Greutate: 0.16 kg
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Bloomsbury Publishing
Locul publicării:London, United Kingdom
De ce să citești această carte
Recomandăm această carte cititorilor care caută memorii scrise cu o sensibilitate literară remarcabilă. The Striker and the Clock oferă o incursiune fascinantă în culisele fotbalului feminin mondial, dincolo de ecranele televizoarelor. Veți câștiga o înțelegere profundă a sacrificiului fizic și psihic necesar pentru a rămâne în joc, totul într-un format compact de 208 pagini care se citește ca un poem dedicat perseverenței.
Descriere
'Riveting ... A paean to the beautiful game' Los Angeles Times
'It contained so much of what I love and find endlessly interesting about football ... A very lovely thinker and writer' Rebecca Watson
'A compelling debut' Times Literary Supplement
In The Striker and the Clock, Georgia Cloepfil tells the story of her life in football: the triumph, the exhilaration, the deep bonds between teammates, and also the years of self-denial, exile and dedication, in which players try in vain to outpace a clock that ticks down toward an indeterminate ending.
What emerges is a profound meditation on what it is to have a body, and what it is to have the compulsion to push it to do the near impossible; and a love letter to the motivations, joys, pains and desires of a beautiful game.
Recenzii
I loved it. Fascinating, thoughtful ... It contained so much of what I love and find endlessly interesting about football - its magician manipulation of time, how the body and mind are fused as one liquid instinct ... A very lovely thinker and writer
A book of uncommonly honest insight, full of wisdom won not through adulation but persistence
Georgia Cloepfil has written a nimble, breathtaking book about the beautiful game, and about her beautiful, brutal life playing it. It reveals so much about the strange, hard path of a young woman pursuing a career as a professional soccer player, but it is far more interesting than an ordinary story of passion, promise, setback, and success. It is, instead, a cleareyed exploration of what passion, promise, setback, and success even mean
Riveting ... A paean to the beautiful game, the book chronicles how Cloepfil overcame adversity to strike joy
Former footballer Georgia Cloepfil offers a unique and fascinating insight into the mind of a professional athlete in this memoir. Written in 90 "minute long" passages, Cloepfil covers the joys of camaraderie, the agony of injury, and what it means to push yourself to your absolute limits in pursuit of what can inevitably only ever be time-limited excellence
With the deft and determined movements of a seasoned player, Georgia Cloepfil writes about what it means to endure and what it means to leave a sport behind. In her first book, The Striker and the Clock, Cloepfil examines her elusive ambitions and redirected energies
This book introduced me to the poetry of soccer and the humble nomad that is the professional female soccer player. Cloepfil's accomplishments and sacrifices while on the clock left me inspired; her talent on the page has me in awe
As poetic as anything you'll read on the early days of pro women's soccer, on the joys and grim realities of an athlete's life, on pain tolerance, on the art of sportswriting itself . Cloepfil's writing helps readers understand why certain athletes, their brains and marriages falling apart, won't just retire
Georgia Cloepfil is that rare athlete who can write well about their sport and their passion . In ninety sharp entries mirroring the ninety minutes of play, Cloepfil captures what it's like to fight so hard to play the game you love
This book is for anyone who has ever loved something with everything they had, anyone who has ever turned themselves over to glory, joy, and worship. A necessary and long-awaited entry into the literary sports canon, The Striker and the Clock is a transcendent love affair and an act of devotion
With swift and elegant prose, Georgia Cloepfil has written not merely a contemplation on sport and the sporting life, but rather a lyrical exploration on the myriad ways to move forward - be it toward a goal, a dream, that dream's end, or toward a glimpse of the sublime itself. The Striker and the Clock serves as a poignant reminder that both art and sport can gift us fleeting encounters with the extraordinary