The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong
Moneyball meets Freakonomics in this myth-busting guide to understanding—and winning—the most popular sport on the planet – now with a new afterword on the 2014 World Cup!Innovation is coming to soccer, and at the center of it all are the numbers—a way of thinking about the game that ignores the obvious in favor of how things actually are. …
The Messiah Method: The Seven Disciplines of the Winningest College Soccer Program in America
How Excellence Happens From 2000 to 2010, the Messiah College soccer program-the men’s team and women’s team combined-posted the best record in NCAA soccer: 472 wins, 31 losses, and 20 ties. Few programs were even close. Seventeen Final Fours between them during this time. Eleven national titles. Unbeaten streaks measured not only in games, but in seasons. …
The Glass Castle meets A League of Their Own in Solo, a candid and moving memoir about family, loss, and reconciliation from Hope Solo, the supremely talented, headline-making goalkeeper for the U.S. women’s national soccer team.During the 2011 Women’s World Cup, Solo became an idol, role model, and sex symbol to a new generation of young American sports …
The Soccer Book illustrates every aspect of the sport in great detail, from the history of the game to how it’s played — the rules, field of play, players, officials, clothing, and equipment. Eye-catching artwork and jargon-free text clearly explain every aspect of the game, such as the correct setup of a defensive wall and the often confusing …
How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization
“An eccentric, fascinating exposé of a world most of us know nothing about.” —The New York Times Book Review “An insightful, entertaining, brainiac sports road trip.” —The Wall Street Journal “Foer’s skills as a narrator are enviable. His characterizations… are comparable to those in Norman Mailer’s journalism.” —The Boston Globe A groundbreaking work—named one of the five most …
In this new edition—updated through the team’s spectacular win at the 2012 London Olympics—Clemente A. Lisi examines how the sport of women’s soccer has gained popularity over the past few decades. While other books have been written about the team during a specific year, such as those focused solely on the 1999 World Cup win on U.S. soil, …
An entertaining biography of the former and hugely successful former manager of FC BarcelonaAs a footballer, Josep “Pep” Guardiola was a much-acclaimed defensive midfielder who spent the majority of his playing career with FC Barcelona. He was part of the great Johan Cruyff’s “dream team” that won the club’s first European Cup. After retiring as a player, Guardiola became …
When the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company formed the Newton Heath L and YR Cricket and Football Club in 1878, they could have had no idea what it was they were starting. Renamed Manchester United in 1902 after financial problems, the new club would soon go on to win the league title and the FA Cup. It was …
Brilliant range is a book about Dutch soccer that’s not really about Dutch socer. It’s more about an enigmatic way of thinking peculiar to a people whose landscape is unrelentingly flat, mostly below sea level, ad who owe their salvation to a boy who plugged a fractured dike with his little inger. If any one thing, Brilliant Orange …
In researching the first book to cover the complete history of Liverpool FC using a linear narrative, the author was given access to the club’s original minute books John Williams explores the origins and divisive politics of soccer in the city of Liverpool and profiles the key men behind the emergence of the club and its early successes in this …