Why do England lose? Why does Scotland suck? Why doesnt America dominate the sport internationally...and why do the Germans play with such an efficient but robotic style? These are questions every soccer aficionado has asked. Soccernomics answers them. Using insights and analogies from economics, statistics, psychology, and business to cast a new and entertaining light on how the game works, Soccernomics reveals the often surprisingly counterintuitive truths about soccer. An essential guide for the 2010 World Cup, Soccernomics is a new way of looking at the worlds most popular game.
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Review
LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2009
"Daily Telegraph"
"If you're a football fan, I'll save you some time: read this book ... compulsive reading ... thoroughly convincing."
"Observer"
"Szymanksi has recently published the best introduction to sports economics ... while Kuper is probably the smartest of the new generation of super-smart sportswriters ... fascinating stories."
"Metro"
"[Kuper and Szymanski] basically trash every cliche about football you ever held to be true. It's bravura stuff ... the study of managers buying players and building a club is one you'll feel like photocopying and sending to your team's chairman"
Paddy Harverson, former communications director of Manchester United, "Financial Times"
"Demolishes ... many soccer shibboleths ... well argued, too. Szymanski, an economist, knows his stuff, and Kuper, a born contrarian and FT sports writer, is incapable of cliche ... great stories and previously unknown nuggets."
"Sport Magazine"
"One for the thinkers"
"The Times"
"More thoughtful than most of its rivals and, by football standards, postively intellectual ... Kuper, a brilliantly contrary columnist, and Szymanski, an economics professor ... find plenty of fertile territory in their commendable determination to overturn the lazy preconceptions rife in football."
"Prospect"
"Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski are a highly effective and scrupulously rational team, combining the former's detailed and nuanced understanding of European football with the latter's sophisticated econometric analysis. With a remarkable lightness of touch, they desmonstrate the limits of conventional thinking in football, as well as the real patterns of behaviour that shape sporting outcomes."
"Daily Telegraph"
"If you're a football fan, I'll save you some time: read this book ... compulsive reading ... thoroughly convincing."
"Observer"
"Szymanksi has recently published the best introduction to sports economics ... while Kuper is probably the smartest of the new generation of super-smart sportswriters ... fascinating stories."
"Metro"
"[Kuper and Szymanski] basically trash every cliche about football you ever held to be true. It's bravura stuff ... the study of managers buying players and building a club is one you'll feel like photocopying and sending to your team's chairman"
Paddy Harverson, former communications director of Manchester United, "Financial Times"
"Demolishes ... many soccer shibboleths ... well argued, too. Szymanski, an economist, knows his stuff, and Kuper, a born contrarian and FT sports writer, is incapable of cliche ... great stories and previously unknown nuggets."
"Sport Magazine"
"One for the thinkers"
"The Times"
"More thoughtful than most of its rivals and, by football standards, postively intellectual ... Kuper, a brilliantly contrary columnist, and Szymanski, an economics professor ... find plenty of fertile territory in their commendable determination to overturn the lazy preconceptions rife in football."
"Prospect"
"Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski are a highly effective and scrupulously rational team, combining the former's detailed and nuanced understanding of European football with the latter's sophisticated econometric analysis. With a remarkable lightness of touch, they desmonstrate the limits of conventional thinking in football, as well as the real patterns of behaviour that shape sporting outcomes."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
American market version of "Why England Lose: and Other Curious Phenomena Explained"
12 Jun 2010
By Fraser the Frank Fish
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
This is the US version of "Why England Lose: and Other Curious Phenomena Explained", with some small differences; the chapter on the FA Cup is replaced by one comparing Association Football with American Football, and the language is americanised. Anyway here's my review based on the English version.
I've read quite a bit of S&K's work as part of my MSc and although I don't necessarily always, or indeed often, agree with their reasoning, they do make interesting points. "Why England Lose..." is a departure into the mainstream from their early, more academic work and judging from the jaunty tone of the book they had great fun writing it, and aimed at rattling some cages along the way.
However, to appeal to a wider audience much of the academic rigour which I would normal associate with S&K is abandoned and conclusions are reached on some rather shallow arguments. A reader not familiar with the use and misuse of statistics should bear in mind that correlation does not constitute causality, and that if at first your stats don't support your hypothesis you can normally rummage around for some that do. This is not knocking S&K in any way and I wouldn't suggest that S&K have done this at all, but academic bias is a common phenomenon and often hard to resist.
Two chapters of the books were particularly interesting - one, regarding the nature of fandom, for its mythbusting and the second, regarding the inherent racism in the game, for perpetuating a flawed myth.
In drawing attention to the nature of a fan and the churn of fans at particular clubs, S&K have aimed a strong, square kick at the goolies of one of the game's sacred cows, and about time too. I'm fed up being told by people how they've followed Chelsea/Man Utd since before they were good.... Read more ›
I've read quite a bit of S&K's work as part of my MSc and although I don't necessarily always, or indeed often, agree with their reasoning, they do make interesting points. "Why England Lose..." is a departure into the mainstream from their early, more academic work and judging from the jaunty tone of the book they had great fun writing it, and aimed at rattling some cages along the way.
However, to appeal to a wider audience much of the academic rigour which I would normal associate with S&K is abandoned and conclusions are reached on some rather shallow arguments. A reader not familiar with the use and misuse of statistics should bear in mind that correlation does not constitute causality, and that if at first your stats don't support your hypothesis you can normally rummage around for some that do. This is not knocking S&K in any way and I wouldn't suggest that S&K have done this at all, but academic bias is a common phenomenon and often hard to resist.
Two chapters of the books were particularly interesting - one, regarding the nature of fandom, for its mythbusting and the second, regarding the inherent racism in the game, for perpetuating a flawed myth.
In drawing attention to the nature of a fan and the churn of fans at particular clubs, S&K have aimed a strong, square kick at the goolies of one of the game's sacred cows, and about time too. I'm fed up being told by people how they've followed Chelsea/Man Utd since before they were good.... Read more ›
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
While you might not agree with the conclusions made by the writers in the book, you can't deny that it is a fascinating application of economic theory to football. It certainly gave me food for thought.
The thing that surprised me while I was reading the book was that I was taken more by the writers' methodology than the actual subject matter. I loved the way that something as romantic as footballing glory can be analysed using regression analysis. I never thought that I would see a mathematician like Gauss mentioned in a book about football.
Having said that, the romantic football fan in me still hopes for glory and wants his team to do better than the statistical factors would suggest it should. The book seems to suggest a degree of fatalism in football which I would love to disprove but expect I can't.
The thing that surprised me while I was reading the book was that I was taken more by the writers' methodology than the actual subject matter. I loved the way that something as romantic as footballing glory can be analysed using regression analysis. I never thought that I would see a mathematician like Gauss mentioned in a book about football.
Having said that, the romantic football fan in me still hopes for glory and wants his team to do better than the statistical factors would suggest it should. The book seems to suggest a degree of fatalism in football which I would love to disprove but expect I can't.
By C. CARBERRY
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The first couple of chapters of this book are absolutely fascinating, analysing in depth and detail how money affects football. For someone like me who's heavily into statistics and also football, it seems like the dream book - the numbers stack up very well and provide a revealing insight into exactly how linear the relationship is between Premier League budgets and eventual performance. There are some remarkable insights; although the lack of focus on salaries (as opposed to transfer fee investment) invariably skews the data a bit, the textbook example being Bolton Wanderers under Sam Allardyce who look good in the book but in reality blew a fortune in paying far higher salaries than the club could sustain. Quibbles apart, though, the analysis part of the book is superb. Sadly, the latter part of the book came as a bit of a disappointment - it was blatantly padding and waffle, designed to fill the blank pages. There's really nothing of interest in, say, the last three quarters of the book, but it's still worth looking at, if only for the revelations at the front. It would have made a superb research paper or magazine article, but there's really not enough material in it for an entire book, which is a great shame. I'd recommend any intelligent football fan to read this book, but probably try and get hold of a second-hand copy, rather than splash out the full price.
By The King
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
There's nothing that this book conveys that can't be garnered by playing football manager. Utter dross, written in a manner that defies logic. A classic example is the author claiming that football has always been called "Soccer", then two paragraphs later, on the opposite page, he recounts the notes of a young man returning at the beginning of the 1900's regaling how he loved his introduction into association football. Like so many books with football as its main topic, its full of selective statistics and slanted opinion.
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I loved freakonomics and am a huge soccer fan so I was excited about reading this book. However I found parts of it lazy for example in the last chapter characterizing Russia as a underdeveloped sporting nation and therefore neglecting their performance in Euro 88 and various other tournaments or more criminally failing to mention Valeriy Lobanovskyi who while a Ukranian, operated in the Soviet league. Furthermore it suggests Australia's soccer development started with Guus Hiddink without mention of Terry Venables.
It also fell in to the trap that many "intellectual" football writers fall in to of praising Arsene Wenger to the hilt. This lazy cliche neglects the fact that for all his skill he hasn't won half as many trophies as Manchester United in his management of Arsenal.
The best moments of the book are interesting in a "huh that makes sense" way rather than a mind blowing transformative way. The use of economic models only really shows so much about a game that has too many variables to calculate. Of course countries with experience, money and population will win more often. Congratulations on stating the blindingly obvious.
It also fell in to the trap that many "intellectual" football writers fall in to of praising Arsene Wenger to the hilt. This lazy cliche neglects the fact that for all his skill he hasn't won half as many trophies as Manchester United in his management of Arsenal.
The best moments of the book are interesting in a "huh that makes sense" way rather than a mind blowing transformative way. The use of economic models only really shows so much about a game that has too many variables to calculate. Of course countries with experience, money and population will win more often. Congratulations on stating the blindingly obvious.
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