Hi, I'm Grant Wall, and welcome to the Planet Football Podcast, where I go in-depth with the most intriguing people in the world of soccer.

On today's show, Duke Professor Laurent Dubois talks about his new book, The Language of the Game, How to

Understand Soccer.

Laurent is one of the truly curious minds in American soccer culture, and that comes out when he talks about his book.

Well what I wanted to do is to write something that would both be a good introduction for people

who are curious to know about soccer but also be a book that people are already quite into soccer could learn something from.

And it's really an introduction to the kind of history and the tactics and but also importantly

to the various cultures of the game all around the world.

All that and more coming up.

Our guest today is one of my favorite people in soccer.

The Rant du Bois is a professor of romance studies in history

at Duke University where he teaches the

popular class soccer politics. His books include Haiti the aftershocks of

history the banjo America's African Instrument, and the sports books, Soccer Empire,

The World Cup and the Future of France, and his newly released book, The Language of the Game,

How to Understand Soccer.

Laurent has organized a one day symposium at Duke on April 6th, called The Struggle for Equality

in Women's Soccer, which I am looking forward to being a part of.

That is open to the public.

Laurent, thanks for joining me.

Thanks so much for having you on your show.

So much to talk about here, but I want to start with your book,

...