Playing For Pizza

John Grisham

258/258 Pages

A couple of weeks go by and not much happens in Parma, Italy. When the Panthers go on a little losing streak Rick decides that he needs to pull the team together. They have 4 games left and must win all of them, one is against the best team in the league, Bergamo. They also have no more Americans besides Rick, because they have both been injured. Rick has a solution though. A hotshot Italian kid named Fabrizio will play if he gets paid, but none of the other Italians get paid. The team owner also doesn’t want to spend any more money. Rick offers to pay him part of his salary, but the owner comes around and pays Fabrizio to play. They smoke the next three teams with Fabrizio, but the next team is Bergamo. Bergamo’s best player isn’t an American, he’s an Italian guy named Maschi who has kind of a “me-first” attitude. He hits extremely hard and is ruthless. 

Back to Rick’s personal life, he finally breaks up with Gabriella an meets a new girl from the U.S. She is a college foreign exchange student who is studying art. When Rick meets her they are in a coffee shop in the city of Florence. She and her friends made a bet on if Rick was waiting for a girl or not. The truth was that he was waiting for Gabriella, but she was over an hour late so he decides to dump her and take the girl instead. The girls name is Livvy and she has parents in Georgia who are in the middle of a nasty divorce so Livvy is thinking about staying in Italy. Her and Rick move in together and start to get in a serious relationship.

Back to football Rick is playing the Bergamo Lions. As I’ve told you Maschi is they’re best player. He plays middle linebacker. The Panthers come up with a devious play called “Kill Maschi”. They leave a big hole for Maschi to come through the middle and then Franco the full back plows him over like a steam roller. The play work and Maschi is out until halftime, which gives the Panthers time to build a lead. They’re ahead by a touchdown, but by the third quarter they’re down by 7 points. The Panthers end up winning and break the Lions’ perfect win streak that was 5 years long. The Panthers go to the playoffs and win the Superbowl against Bergamo, of course.

Rick and Livvy develop a strong serious relationship and both stay in Parma through the next year. Rick faces the decision of leaving Parma and going to play for a team in Canada or stay and lead the Panthers to the playoffs again. Rick decides to stay, because he thinks of the Panthers as family not just teammates.

The author of this book John Grisham visited Parma and found that there actually is a Parma Panthers and he gets to meet the team and visits their stadium. The Panthers get really excited to hear that a book was written about them. The Italians don’t play for money like Americans, but for the fun of the game like it should be played.

A couple of weeks go by and not much happens in Parma, Italy. When the Panthers go on a little losing streak Rick decides that he needs to pull the team together. They have 4 games left and must win all of them, one is against the best team in the league, Bergamo. They also have no more Americans besides Rick, because they have both been injured. Rick has a solution though. A hotshot Italian kid named Fabrizio will play if he gets paid, but none of the other Italians get paid. The team owner also doesn’t want to spend any more money. Rick offers to pay him part of his salary, but the owner comes around and pays Fabrizio to play. They smoke the next three teams with Fabrizio, but the next team is Bergamo. Bergamo’s best player isn’t an American, he’s an Italian guy named Maschi who has kind of a “me-first” attitude. He hits extremely hard and is ruthless. 

Back to Rick’s personal life, he finally breaks up with Gabriella an meets a new girl from the U.S. She is a college foreign exchange student who is studying art. When Rick meets her they are in a coffee shop in the city of Florence. She and her friends made a bet on if Rick was waiting for a girl or not. The truth was that he was waiting for Gabriella, but she was over an hour late so he decides to dump her and take the girl instead. The girls name is Livvy and she has parents in Georgia who are in the middle of a nasty divorce so Livvy is thinking about staying in Italy. Her and Rick move in together and start to get in a serious relationship.

Back to football Rick is playing the Bergamo Lions. As I’ve told you Maschi is they’re best player. He plays middle linebacker. The Panthers come up with a devious play called “Kill Maschi”. They leave a big hole for Maschi to come through the middle and then Franco the full back plows him over like a steam roller. The play work and Maschi is out until halftime, which gives the Panthers time to build a lead. They’re ahead by a touchdown, but by the third quarter they’re down by 7 points. The Panthers end up winning and break the Lions’ perfect win streak that was 5 years long. The Panthers go to the playoffs and win the Superbowl against Bergamo, of course.

Rick and Livvy develop a strong serious relationship and both stay in Parma through the next year. Rick faces the decision of leaving Parma and going to play for a team in Canada or stay and lead the Panthers to the playoffs again. Rick decides to stay, because he thinks of the Panthers as family not just teammates.

The author of this book John Grisham visited Parma and found that there actually is a Parma Panthers and he gets to meet the team and visits their stadium. The Panthers get really excited to hear that a book was written about them. The Italians don’t play for money like Americans, but for the fun of the game like it should be played.

I really enjoyed this book and I liked how he based it off a real team that played, because they loved the game not, because they loved their paycheck. I also didn’t know that there was an Italian football league and how so many washed up american players go to play over seas.  I would recommend this book to anyone that loves to read books by John Grisham, the book doesn’t just teach you about football, but it also teaches you about life. It is a very good book and it is worth reading.