God Is Brazilian

Pele, Garrincha, Socrates, Romario, Ronaldinho - all of them can trace their lineage to a young man, half English, half Scottish, who carried a football from Sao Paulo and taught Brazil how to play the beautiful game.In 1894, Charles Miller arrived in Brazil with a pair of boots, a book of rules and a football. When he discovered that no one knew how to play, he marked out a pitch, gathered twenty young men and divided them into two teams...Today, Brazil is the greatest football-playing nation in the world, admired everywhere for its skill, passion, flair and commitment to attacking play - but Charles Miller has been forgotten. This is his story; a gripping narrative of one man's love of football and the clash between two very different cultures: the foxtrot versus the samba; the stiff upper lip versus swinging hips. Josh Lacey tells the profoundly moving story of a man who gave Brazil its greatest gift but lost everything - his heart, his soul and even his wife - to that seductive country.