Pulse

What can lead a referee to his death? What unites Sporting fans and Benfica fans?

Journalist and writer José Manuel Delgado, who was a professional footballer for fifteen years—and a two-time national champion with Benfica—presents an original way of recalling his career in Pulsação, mixing highly curious facts with profound opinions, while at the same time fictionalising narratives and exploring the fascinating possibility of things that are not, but could be.

How does a Portimonense team end up in Bahrain? What leads an extremely wealthy player to ruin?

This is a rare kind of book—unprecedented among Portuguese authors—that will surprise and entertain the reader from many different perspectives.

There are memorable stories about Eusébio, Eriksson, Béla Guttman, Jimmy Hagan, Pal Csernai, António Medeiros, and many, many more, but there are also tales of goats eating goal nets, of players smuggling diamonds, of venomous snakes loose in Lisbon, of journalists who cannot write what they know, and of murderers whose only passion was watching Belenenses play at Restelo...

What does a goalkeeper do when they concede and the score is already 7–0? What is football like when played without using your head?