GREATNESS marches to a different beat. As composer Julie Styne said of Frank Sinatra: ''Frank figured it out. He sings the words. The other fellers sing the notes.''

So it is with South American football. A continent's love affair with the game is syncopated with the rhythm of their lives, work, and music.

The samba card is the one most often played when one talks of Brazil. As Chris Taylor points out in his excellent The Beautiful Game: A Journey Through Latin American Football (Gollancz, #16.99).

A country that has samba and other exuberant musical styles, such as frevo and chorinho, has to play a different brand of football.

But football in South America mostly resembles the tango. It is full of dramatic pauses, elegant posturing, and contains a dark allure. The sinuosity and virtuosity of the game is matched by a steely pragmatism.

Football may be conducted with a smile but there is always a sinister sneer on the lips of the player. It is the beautiful game, but it is also a serious business.

Chris Taylor worships the beautiful but does not shy away from tackling the sinister.

Part travel writing, part sports journalism, and part history, Taylor has spun a compelling tale of both life and football in South America. Sometimes the two are inseparable.

Football mirrors much of the image a country holds of itself.

The machismo of the South American finds vent in the physical side of football.

Ramsay can call the Argentinians animals and Ernie Walker can label the Uruguayans as scum, but Taylor digs beneath these shallow insults to discover how and why gifted players can turn violent.

Much is machismo. Gustave Poyet, the Uruguayan player who plies his trade with Chelsea, tells of leaving home, aged six, to play against an Argentinian side. His father called out to him: ''If you lose, don't come home.''

It was no idle threat. A defeat by their great rivals would have meant a night spent with an aunt.

This garra interna, internal strength, pervades the South American psyche.

Football can appear more a war to be won rather than a game to be played.

This ruthlessness is matched by a perception that the outside, white world is against them.

Antonio Rattin, the Argentinian captain famously sent off at Wembley in 1966, makes a good case that the events of that tournament were influenced by the treatment of South Americans as less than welcome guests. It should be remembered that the most brutal assaults perpetrated at that tournament were by the Portugese on Pele.

Race is also an issue with the South Americans. White skin is seen as synonymous with class. Until recently black Brazilian footballers were treated as second-class citizens. Little has changed. As Taylor remarks: ''If you are black, Brazilian and rich, you're probably Pele.''

A black Brazilian player in the early days once covered his face in rice powder to appear more white. This racism is extended to personality. Maradona's Indian heritage placed him neatly into the niche of Artful Dodger. His Hand of God goal carried the fingerprints of a society which perceived his actions as that of an enterprising urchin prepared to go to lengths to gain an edge. Typically, this outrageous piece of finishing was accompanied by a goal which strained analysis and defied any observer's criticism.

Taylor's journey has the usual tourist stopping points of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. His snapshots of these famous footballing nations are bright and informative.

His diversions into Chile and Guatemala provide a deeper analysis. Guatemala is the land football forgot. A nation shrugs its shoulders at football and swings a baseball bat. Chile is infected by the contagion of football but has been inoculated against success.

Taylor's writings are marked with an insight and love of the game. His pilgrimage to South America is given due reverence but he is always ready to smile at the incongruities of football in another continent.

He observes laconically that in Colombia the drug runners used football to launder money, later channelling funds with a macabre appropriateness into a line of chemist shops.

The Beautiful Game is decorated by Taylor's erudition and hard work, which is hardly veiled by his transparent fascination for the sport.

His historical researches, however, touch on a bitter irony as Scotland prepare to play the world masters of Brazil.

To play a short, skillful passing game is known as playing a la escocesa (Scottish-style). You would have to be blind not to spot the irony.