Tim Parks goes on the road to follow the fortunes of Hellas Verona football club, to pay a different kind of visit to some of the world's most beautiful cities, and to get a fresh take on the conundrum that is national character. From Udine to Catania, from the San Siro to the Olimpico, travelling with the fans and the players, this is a highly personal account of one man's relationship with a country, its people and its national sport. The club are struggling, as always, to keep their heads above water in Serie A. The fans, as always, are accused of vulgarity, racism and violence. It's an election year and politics encroaches. The police are ambiguous, the journeys exhausting, the referees unforgivable, the anecdotes hilarious. Behind it all is the growing intuition that in a world stripped of idealism and bereft of religion, football offers a new and fiercely ironic way of forming community and engaging with the sacred.