Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the mythographic dimension of literary representations of the soccer manager and how these might be understood as projecting viable models for a future to come. Piskurek’s analysis of the figure of the soccer manager not only provides a counter-reading to Kilpatrick’s interpretation of Peace in the volume. The book contributes to the discussion of what one might call a poetics of fandom. It explores constitutive element for the respective phenomenon in question, soccer and the discourse on soccer. The book focuses on the specific linguistic strategies used to report scandals zooming in on David Beckham's famous text sex affair as covered in online newspapers as a test case. It provides with a survey of the diverse linguistic strategies players use to communicate with each other.