Social history of football: a game that never ends

Abstract

This article sought to develop a brief analysis of the place occupied by soccer as an object of study in Brazilian historiography. To this end, we organized a state of the art, selecting academic papers presented and published by the National History Symposium, the main scientific event of the National History Association (ANPUH), pointing out the reflections needed to better understand this discursive set that has been built up in the relationship between soccer and history over time. Obviously, this methodological decision was necessary due to the many possibilities available for the achievement of a proposal of this magnitude, since historical writing about soccer escapes the limits of the historical episteme. However, observing the space dedicated to soccer in the Annals of ANPUH allows us to grasp the advances and setbacks of this object produced by the stricter field of historiographical science. It is worth noting that this option does not make the works analyzed here more legitimate, nor does it make, on the other hand, the studies not made visible by ANPUH less  important. This is merely an exercise of understanding from one perspective, among many possibilities. In addition, we also aim to present the organization of the “Social History of Football” Dossier, contextualizing the other articles that make up this document, describing the central axis of each one of them, and also its other sections, namely an interview and a review.