Customer Reviews

Soccerhead: An Accidental Journey into the Heart of the American Game

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Folks, soccer is different. You will learn, the author learned. You want to coach and you do not know soccer. OK, welcome to the club. Before you start, learn what it is really all about - PARENTS, KIDS, REFS, relationships... And then we will get to the GAME of SOCCER.

It will come, you will learn the game. The big picture; what is really going on across our country - is in this book. Read it.

Read the book, get the kids to play hard, and love the game.

A story about a team, a history of the game in the U.S., a coach's odyssey, a rumination on what youth sports have become ... "Soccerhead" has it all. I accidentally came across this while searching for books to advance my one-step-ahead-of-my-team coaching knowledge, and the perspective it offers is better than any nuts and bolts primer. And you'll find yourself rooting for a bunch of kids from College Park, MD, as if they were the national team. I can truthfully say I couldn't put it down -- read it start to finish in an evening.

Funny, realistic, intelligent and beautifully written. I'm a "draftee" soccerhead, thanks to my son. Thanks to Jim Haner, I have an understanding of what this game is about. More importantly, I gain from him the understanding of what the game looks like from the inside. Jim writes about soccer kids with the same passion other writers save for major league athletes, and makes those kids live in your imagination. His description of individual soccer games alone is worth the price of admission, but his study of the game's history and analysis of the strategy (more Sun Tzu, less Clausewitz) has added immeasurably to my understanding of what happens on the field. I should add that Jim Haner has been my son's soccer trainer, and he's as dynamic and alive on the field as he is on the printed page. A wonderful read.

Basically this is an excellent description of a novice to the soccer world learning its vaules and benefits. The author well documents his passage from novice to becoming a "soccer nut" whom goes overboard like many before him with his passion for this sport. His primary experience is in the recreational levels of the game, but his professional experience allows him to get a unexpected glimpse into the history of the sport in America.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the game itself at any level. His enjoyment of youth sports and their demands upon its paritcipants is an accurate reflection of how many youth sports become a passion, not just an interest.
It is a positive journey about a sport which its fans give their hearts to and will follow throughout their lives.

Jim's style of writing is captivating and comedic. Being myself an assistant coach, and a parent of youth players, I found his antecdotes very similar to my own experiences. His research of the sport provides a goldmine of information for anyone who wishes to learn the roots of the sport in the USA, or its rich but little known highly competitive history amongst migrant cultures flocking to America. A must read for the parent or coach alike as Jim shares its all too common experiences.

This is an excellent soccer book. It's one that every Weekend warrior soccer coach will love.

Haner is a genuine hard-bitten gumshoe reporter, the kind of guy who's battled sleazoid pols and his own bosses, and written great stories along the way.

Which is why it's almost incongruous that he's written Soccerhead - a touching, funny, thoroughly reported treatise on the hidden phenomenon of youth soccer, told through the eyes of a befuddled man out of place.

It's a terrific read, a must for any soccerhead - and all the parents of 5-year-olds who don't know that they're destined to be soccerheads.

this is a great book that mixes in amusing antidotes along with the rich history and varied statagies of the game. this book has made watching soccer much more interesting, its fun to break down the different stratagies talked about in this book. it has also helped me a lot on the field. praise for Soccerhead!!

This is a great easy read for anyone who has kids playing youth soccer and is interested in the history of the sport in the United States. If you live on the East Coast particularily in MD you will find it particularily relevant as the author's coaching experience hails from College Park.

A great parallel narrative, jointly tracking the familiar tales of youth soccer's takeover by the mania of club systems (along with a shrewd critique of parents' naive assumptions about soccer as a 'democratic,' 'non-contact,' or 'safely suburban 'sport), with alternating sections that narrate some of the less familiar chapters of American soccer in the 20th century (outdrawing pro football at stadiums between WWI and WWII). Amused at his concscription as parent-coach into the chaos of contemporary youth soccer, Haner demonstrates his award-winning journalistic expertise and his comic touch in equal, engaging parts. A great book to pass among teammates -- and parents -- on the sidelines!