Following the ball: The migration of African soccer players across the Portuguese colonial empire, 1949-1975

By Todd Cleveland. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2017

Abstract

In Following the Ball, Todd Cleveland meticulously unpacks the history of African soccer players’ migratory journeys across the Portuguese colonial empire. While this book makes an invaluable contribution to what is a nascent body of literature on the migration of African football players, it also represents a telling addition to our understanding of the encounters between coloniser and colonised and how these played out specifically within the Portuguese colonial project.