Finding the game

Gwendolyn Oxenham

"Every country has a different term for it: In the United States, it's "pickup." In Trinidad, it's "taking a sweat." In Brazil, it's "pelada" (literally "naked"). It's the other side of soccer, played away from the bright lights and manicured fields--the game for anyone, anywhere. Gwendolyn Oxenham was a former college soccer star with visions of going pro. But when the women's professional soccer league folded, her career was over before it began. So she embarked on a different kind of adventure. In Finding the Game, Oxenham, with her boyfriend and two friends, scour the globe in search of pickup soccer: they bribe their way into a Bolivian prison, compete against women in hijab in Tehran, and bet shillings on a game with moonshine brewers in Kenya. Along the way, she discovers that the game, stripped down to its core, is the same no matter where it's played. An entertaining,...