Reddit reviews Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--are Destined to Become the Kings of the Worl

Soccernomics

I haven't read this one yet, but the thread gives me an idea:

Let's put together a list of essential reading here, and when we're done we can add it to the FAQ.

Please add book title with link and a short description.

I'll start:

Soccernomics -- analyzes the game from the perspective of behavioral economics. A highly entertaining read. Some may find some of the conclusions a little iffy, but the chapter on penalty kicks and game theory is by itself worth the price of the book.

Soccer in Sun and Shadow -- a poetic, moving, and often hilarious reflection of a lifetime of watching the beautiful game. The book is written in short, pithy chunks, and few chapters are more than a couple pages long. But the work itself is a passionate and reverent love song for the sport itself.

Fever Pitch -- a diary of the author's life-long obsession with Arsenal, the book tries to make sense of the complex mix of agony, frustration, bitter disappointment, and fleeting moments of pure ecstasy that make up the experience of being a die-hard supporter. There is a lot about Arsenal, of course. But it's really a story about being a fan.

___

Keep 'em coming ...

According to the authors of Soccernomics, hosting a World Cup or Olympics is an inefficient way to revitalize a city, or enrich a nation. It can boost a nation's morale or image, but not much else.

> "If you want to regenerate a poor neighborhood, regenerate it. If you want an Olympic pool and a warm-up track, build them. You could build pools and tracks all across London, and it would still be cheaper than hosting the Olympics."

There was an extensive article about the South African preparation for the World Cup in Portuguese (very worth translating, redditors!) that came to the same conclusion. It also talked about the mafia-like economy in and around FIFA. An excerpt:

> "Kruger Park, Northeast of the country, is Africa's largest natural reserve. In 2006, a consortium won the bidding for the construction of an stadium at the entrance of Kruger, in the city of Nelspruit. Among the demands of the group was that engineers and high-skilled workers were installed in places where electrical power and air-conditioning were guaranteed. The only building that met those conditions was an elementary school from a slum near the construction. The provincial government didn't hesitate: for three years the school building hosts the workers' housing. The children were moved to temporary classrooms in aluminum containers with no ventilation or windows.

> With orange columns that resemble giant giraffes, the Nelspruit stadium cost 140 million dollars. Hosting four of the 64 games, it will be used for only six hours during the World Cup. And then can hardly fill their 46,000 seats. Its construction was accompanied by a big fuss of suspected corruption, overbilling and misappropriation of funds."

Another book that isn't directly about Arsenal but it's a very intriguing read is "Soccernomics." It focuses on Arsenal in various chapters, especially the way Wenger handles the club.

http://www.amazon.com/Soccernomics-Australia-Turkey-Iraq-Are-Destined/dp/1568584253

Read this last fall. Excellent book, completely changed the way i think about football.

If you read Soccernomics, England's performance isn't so bad, considering its size.

The fact isn't so much that England is overrated, but we as a nation are eternal blind optimists for our football team and continue to say that we have a chance, even though we know we don't. This isn't helped by the fact that our media continues to whip the country into a jingoistic, nationalistic frenzy at the outset of over major tournament.

There's a really interesting analysis of the effects of things like population and GDP on national team victories in the book Soccernomics, if anyone is interested.

The overall conclusion of this type of exeperience was expressed perfectly in this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soccernomics-England-Germany-Australia-Destined/dp/1568584253

Football in america will grow and grow until the US players are exceptionally formidable opponents.

How many of you have read this book? When you've seen the growth that the USA had made since hosting in 1994 to winning their group (a group that included England hehe) in 2010, we're seeing some significant gains. U.S. Soccer is rising, perhaps not as fast as we'd like, but it's gaining in status (and subsequently talent) and anyone who's willing to deny it is, frankly put, an idiot. The USA has a tremendous talent pool to select (many Americans play in all leagues now) from and it is unfortunate that we've lost some near-World Class youth talent (Subotic and Giuseppe Rossi) to other nations. Often neglected as well, the MLS is attracting talent from all corners of the Americas (enticed perhaps by the prospect of a higher form of living in America or monetary opportunities.) Some of these individuals will have played long enough in the MLS to one day consider switching nationalities. Despite your personal beliefs, it is only an added bonus for the US talent pool and one that Americans don't make much fuss about (Claudio Reyna is a prime example of such a figure.) Most importantly, the US and MLS are now making significant investments in youth football. We saw some of the benefits that this had in producing talent like Donovan or Howard, however that was with a small and select group of individuals. Now the MLS and the USSF is extending that opportunity to a greater number of youth players, also in an effort to draw quality athletes away from competing American sports. The MLS is now commonplace in sports discussions, it is also expanding to accommodate more cities and common folks are genuinely intrigued by a game that is two 45 minute half's of solid play (uninterrupted by 5,000 commercials.) I wouldn't say that the US is a sleeping giant, it's definitely awake but not exercising it's full abilities yet.

In any case, this is all conjecture on my half but it's damn fucking exciting! For those of you who are looking for something to read, I highly recommend this book.

Just for the record, a book on this subject - Soccernomics was JUST published arguing that the US are indeed destined to become a top footballing country, specifically on the grounds that our teams don't totally embarrass themselves despite virtually zero serious interest in football. The authors argue that with our size, resources, and the fact that interest is on the rise, we are indeed sleeping giants of the football world.

Basically, America is the most populous wealthy nation with a long history in the games. Having read a book written by an economist about why certain national soccer teams do well (this), I think the theory can be applied to the Olympics. The economist identified three important factors for international sporting success:

• Population
  
• Wealth
  
• Experience at the sport (which results in pre-existing facilities and coaches etc)
  
  If you look at India, which has a large population, it has no real experience at competing successfully at the Olympics. Basically, the only sport Indians care about is cricket. Whereas the US has been in the modern Olympics from the start.
  
  If you look at China and Russia, they have the experience and big populations, but are quite poor countries compared to the US. An even more extreme example would be; how many people in Uganda do you think can afford high spec road bikes to train on?
  
  Lastly, compared to countries like Great Britain and France, which are wealthy and have a long history at the games, the US has a much bigger population. It may only be 5% of the world population, but it is still the third most populous country.
  
  If you look at medals tables adjusted for population and GDP, both can be seen here or here, the US isn’t near the top. Then again, I would argue that athletes from countries in the Caribbean often benefit from training in the US, with its per-existing sports infrastructure and wealth – which these charts don’t adjust for. Also, European and Australasian countries will have large scale sports programs despite their smaller sizes, so that they are more likely to find talent despite their smaller populations. Nevertheless, the US does benefit from its large population, but it still captured 11% of the medals compared to having 5% of the world’s population, so I guess the rest is down to wealth and experience.
  
  I suppose this is why the Olympic organizing committee says that there is no official medal ranking, because the medals are given for individual achievements. If someone from Latvia won a medal, it is as much down to their hard work and dedication, as anything else. The Olympics is about humanity coming together to celebrate sport, this is why non-medalists, such as the Iranian judo player/fighter(?) Wojdan Shaherkani, embody the Olympic spirit as much as Usain Bolt.
  
  Now let’s all hold hands and cry because David Rhodesia is so polite…
  

Soccernomics is a similar book, but about soccer (football).

The Signal and the Noise, while not being exclusively about sports (there are chapters about baseball and poker though), applies statistics in a similar way to other real-life problems like voting, earthquakes, and financial crashes.

A book you night be able to use is "How Soccer Explains The World: An Unlikely theory on Globalization" by Franklin Foer. Its all about the development of clubs and the historical and political impact that they've had on their home countries, as well as how the sport has grown. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061978051?pc_redir=1398414187&robot_redir=1. If thats too much into the actual history of clubs try "Soccernomics" by Simon Kuper and Stefan Symanski. Its a more mathmatical look into the sport and how and why certain countries win while others dont. Amazon Link http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1568584253?pc_redir=1398426773&robot_redir=1.
As a fan of soccer im obliged to say that you should give the sport a chance.

Norway being the most football crazy nation in the world(source: Soccernomics), the English football rivalry is probably strongest outside of England. You'll have a hard time finding a single Norwegian without any football allegiance, whether it be red or blue.

Practically every single pub in my town shows Premier League games, and you'll always find people wearing their supporter shirts while singing songs, chanting and throwing insults at the other team's supporters. It's been like this since the early 90's, or for as long as I can remember at least.

I find it funny that I see so many Americans in this thread. I spent some time studying at UC Berkeley a few years back, and I couldn't find a single pub in the bay area showing the Man Utd - City game (Nov 2010), nor any other games for that matter.

Agreed.

I am currently reading soccernomics, and the author has a chapter on parity in the PL vs. NFL and also presents a number of other insightful NFL/PL comparisons.

I absolutely loved Soccernomics.

Read the book Soccernomics and you'll really understand the patterns and statistics that explain the unavoidable demise of England in every world cup and international football in general. It's mostly a numbers game (as is everything), but is also based on the poor development of English talent and the exclusion of certain demographics that could provide talent for England. Don't go insulting people's knowledge of the game without doing some research. The English media will hype their team as usual, but unfortunately for England the numbers don't lie and their results will be inevitable. In other word's no matter how good they look or what level they are on those joke ratings, they are not a strong team.

The rapid change in transfer spending over the years is definitely true, and you can thank Chelsea for that.

The reality is United have been insulated due to our fantastic academy and Fergie's habit of betting on young talent instead dropping cash on established players. We HAVE been spending millions on players, just in a very different way. Our wage bill has been among the highest in the world, even before Chelsea and City started their crazy spending fees.

I agree 100% that transfer spending does not equal success, player wages are a far better indicator. If you own the best players in the world (ex. Ronaldo) you don't have to buy them, you just have to pay them. The problem is that we have struggled lately in turning our young buys into truely world class players (ex. Anderson and Young). We also gave away Pogba for nothing, which I am sure you would agree was a terrible mistake.

Check out Soccernomics it is a great read about how football finances are changing, and addresses a lot of the points you raised.

TLDR; Don't be a dick, we are all United fans here bud. :)

You wish. I think you should pick up Soccernomics. They have a pretty good argument as to why England will continue to under perform for years to come.

(it's basically because they don't have the networking prowess of the rest of Europe. [being an island] They also are too stubborn and self intitled to make the right decisions when it comes down to it. Don't get me wrong though, I love the English game and would love even more to see you guys win. I just thought this book made a good point.

Thanks for the consideration.

Yeah, as I was discussing with a friend, it's a matter of marginal value rather than absolute. Hence "shit compared to EPL" would be a much more defensible statement.

I commented both from the general principle that statements should be as exact and correct as possible in conveying information and that I didn't want the residents of /r/baseball to get the impression that MLS were actually bad. And the fan experience at games is often said to be world class.

I've discovered that (particularly regarding sports), evaluations that sound absolute are quite commonly relative. Not only does that leave out the context or standard that the speaker applies, the receiver often doesn't even attempt to guess a reasonable standard.

Fortunately, that's relatively harmless in sports, but it's a bad habit to have in life. Your response and your interest in sports metrics suggests you've got that figured out, though, so enough of my polemic.

You should read Soccernomics if you get the chance.

Just a quick snapshot (attached the amazon links below as their reviews give a good description) they are both statistical thinking on sports. Pardon my lack of clarity if its confusing at all, just got out of a midterm.

Moneyball explains, through one year of one team, how the new statistical methods were being developed and started to be used more.

Soccernomics is a book with a strong amount of analysis by economists in how the market has shaped up for transfers (trades) and any trends that have been set. Essentially they are both based off of 'advanced' statistics and interpretations through sports. I'm essentially most interested in managerial decisions in sports and any books on related topics.

http://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393057658
http://www.amazon.com/Soccernomics-Australia-Turkey-Iraq-Are-Destined/dp/1568584253

Soccernomics - fascinating look at the world of soccer

Great idea. In "Soccernomics" they found that transfers that happen following a World Cup or Euro are, statistically speaking, terrible deals.

yeah there is a chapter on this role/line of thinking in a good book called [Soccernomics] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568584253) it's basically about having someone or a team of people at your club that works with forgone players to help them feel at home/comfortable at and around your club quickly so they bed in and feel at ease. They talk about these people helping them find apartments, getting them a cell phone, and finding restaurants and such that make them feel comfortable. I suspect that Joel is one of those people at Tottenham.