Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Spain, Germany, and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey-and Even Iraq-Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport - Softcover

Kuper, Simon; Szymanski, Stefan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568587015 ISBN 13: 9781568587011

Publisher: Nation Books, 2012

Synopsis

Why doesn't the United States dominate soccer internationally...and how can it?
Which is the best soccer nation on Earth?
Who has the most passionate fans?
What impact does soccer have on suicide rates?
Which sport will dominate the Earth? NFL or the English Premier League?
Why are the people who run soccer clubs so dumb?

These are some of the questions that every soccer fanatic has asked. Soccernomics answers them. Written with an economist's brain and a sports writer's skill, it applies high-powered analytical tools to everyday soccer topics, looking at data in new ways, revealing counterintuitive truths about the world's most loved game. It all adds up to a revolutionary way of looking at soccer that could affect the way the game is played internationally.

About this title

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 cliché 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 cliché ... 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."

About the Author:

Simon Kuper’s first book, Soccer Against the Enemy, won the William Hill Prize for sports book of the year in Britain. His second book, Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Football in Europe During the Second World War, was shortlisted for the William Hill Prize and has been translated into six languages. Kuper writes a weekly sports column in the Financial Times, and previously written Soccer columns for the Times and in the Observer. He has been interviewed hundreds of times on radio about sports-and-society issues, and many times on television. In December 2007 he won the annual Manuel Vazquez Montalban prize for sportswriting, awarded by the Colegio de Periodistas de Catalunya and FC Barcelona’s foundation. He lives in Paris, France.

Stefan Szymanski is Professor of Economics and MBA Dean at Cass Business School in London. Tim Harford has called him ?one of the world’s leading sports economists”. Stefan has a global reputation, and has published in the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economic Literature and Economic Journal. He has also co-authored two books: Winners and Losers: The Business Strategy of Football and National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer. His next book, Fans of the World; Unite!, co-authored with Steve Ross and dealing with the reform of US sports leagues, will be published by Stanford University Press in autumn 2008. He has acted as a consultant to government and to several major sports organizations, such as the FIA (motor sport), UEFA (football) and ICC (cricket). He lives in London, UK.

About this edition

• Publisher: Nation Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1568587015
• ISBN 13: 9781568587011
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 438