Glittering Prize

Every four years, the planet stops dead for an event like no other. The World Cup captures the global imagination in a way that dwarfs every other sporting competition. Glittering Prize tells the full story of its thrilling century-long arc. Volume III is centred on the modern incarnation of the tournament: Zinedine Zidane's catastrophic meltdown on the biggest stage of all in Berlin in 2006; the breaking of new ground in South Africa four years later; the jaw-dropping implosion of Brazil on home soil in 2014; Russia's politically explosive hosting of the competition in 2018; and the squalid, petrodollar-fuelled pantomime of Qatar 2022. Brimming with vivid detail and larger-than-life protagonists such as Andrea Pirlo, Luis Suárez, Didier Drogba, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo, Glittering Prize is a compelling chronicle of the greatest sporting show on earth.