The Game and the Glory: An Autobiography

Women's soccer lovers will be delighted by this autobiography of one of the 1999 World Cup's star players, a consummate athlete who has maintained her hyper-competitive, hard-driving game while suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. Akers and Lewis take the reader through the highlights and low points of Akers's 33 years, focusing largely on the events and emotions surrounding each of her major soccer triumphs. Fans will revel in the personal details about her friends, coaches and U.S. women's soccer teammates, though nothing in this book has even the remotest thrill of kiss-and-tell. The dramatic energy all comes from the game, in spite of Akers and Lewis's attempt to weave in the book's other theme, the story of her growing Christian faith; her undoubtedly sincere and maturing dependence on God coexists rather uneasily with her aggressive pursuit of soccer and its punishing impact on her body and her first marriage (the failure of which receives strangely laconic treatment). Talk of a God who saves the weak seems out of place in a book that so celebrates personal drive and teeth-gritting strength. Akers never quite owns up to the manifest conflict between her current values and the agenda and lifestyle that have made her famous. The result is great soccer--but unremarkable spiritual writing. (Apr.)