This collection of 11 essays, by sociologists, historians, and journalists, expands on themes developed in an earlier volume that focused exclusively on Argentine fútbol clubs following the 1976 military coup. The volume is divided into three sections. The first three chapters focus on the complex relationships among social actors, social spaces, and politics, including the media and the uses of Buenos Aires's Luna Park Sports Arena. A second section also contains three essays, with one each on Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. The last section of five essays returns the focus to the methods of the first volume, with detailed examination of the fraught histories of Argentine fútbol clubs—players, leaders, and fans—during the 1976-83 era.

The volume contains some touch points, even for those with only passing interest in sports history and the Southern Cone. For example, Diego Maradona appears in these pages, as he emerged during this era on his way to striding into the collective Argentine psyche and that of the sports world generally. However, the value of these essays does not lie in the big names or moments—World Cups and Maradona—but rather in the rich detail that reveals to readers how fútbol, woven into the fabric of Argentine politics and society, helps us understand what it meant for that fabric to unravel.