Calcio tells the story of Italian football from its origins in the 1890s to its present day incarnation - at its most triumphant, and corrupt, throughout its history. It takes us through the great players and teams, the style, passion and successes, but also the violence, cynicism and the under-handedness that have been its constant shadow.

We meet the personalities who have shaped this history, from the homegrown Heroes to the foreigners that flopped, the model professionals to the mavericks. Calcio evokes the triumphs (the World Cup victories) and the tragedies. (Moroni, the 'Italian George Best', killed by his number one fan) in a country where the ref, and the board, are seen as corrupt until proven otherwise.

Calcio is sometimes difficult to define even as a sport. In its cut-and-thrust creed, winners are always right, losers always wrong, sportsmanship a sweet anachronrism. This history of Italian football is a mix of serious analysis and comic storytelling, with vivid descriptions of games, goals, dives, rights and a new afterword covering the unexpected triumph of the 2006 World Cup side and the most recent corruption scandal that, only days after that famous victory, threatens to once more devastate the richest, toughest, most bizarre league in the world.