Customer 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 World's Most Popular Sport

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I was made aware of this book when I heard one of the authors give an interview. Many of the topics in the interview weren't in the book, but a host of other areas where. The book is easy to read and well researched. However, it is very much written from a British point of view - so don't let the Americanized title of Soccernomics fool you. It mainly appears to be a book that hopes to explain to the English that they are not the most rabid fans nor the best players of the game they invented 150 years ago.

Some of the chapters were so absolutely fascinating, I couldn't stop reading. Other chapters were so ultimately boring that I skipped them. The good thing is that you can skip around and read each chapter independently without really losing any overall scope of the book.

Even though I didn't agree with some the conclusions and read the data differently, I certainly feel much more knowledgeable about the current game and how we got here. If you are a fan of soccer, you should seriously consider this fact-filled book. It will make for great discussions around the TV during next summer's World Cup.

Offers some very interesting insights into the world of soccer. While some compare it to Michael Lewis's "Moneyball", it differs in that "Moneyball" deals more with baseball at the micro level, while "Soccernomics" deals with soccer at a macro level. There is a lot of statistical analysis of national teams, but no analysis of individual players. In essence this is one of the difficulties of soccer, as it does not naturally lend itself to extreme statistical analysis like baseball does.

My main argument with the book is that it treats the NFL as the US's main export sport. While the NFL is undoubtedly the most popular league in the United States, this is a recent phenomenon. Baseball has traditionally been "America's Past Time" and thus is the sport that the United States spread around the world, although not to the same level that the English spread soccer.

One analysis that I wanted to read about was the success of Latin American teams. In particular an analysis of Mexico and Brazil. Both countries are soccer crazy and have very large populations, but Brazil has won five World Cups and Mexico none. It would be interesting to see an analysis of why this has happend, but the book mainly deals with European teams as their statistics are more reliable.

Simon Kuper is the long-time weekly sports columnist in the Financial Times, and he is one of the reasons I so look forward to reading the Weekend Edition of the pink paper. When I saw that he had authored a new book about soccer, and then saw more details about what the book would be about, I knew I just had to have it and ordered it here on Amazon at a very purchase-friendly price.

"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 World's Most Popular Sport" (336 pages) is co-written by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, a British economist. An economist, you might ask? Yes indeed, as this book brings a fascinating look into the numbers of soccer. Here a couple of quotes from the book:

-- "In 2002 everyone knew that the obscure, bucktoothed Brazilian kid Ronaldinho must have lucked out with the free kick that sailed into England's net, because he couldn't have been good enough to place it deliberately." (commenting on the English belief of freakish bad luck for their national team).

-- "Our finding: England in the 1980-2001 period outscored its opponents by 0.84 goals per game. That was 0.21 more than we had predicted based on the country's resources. In short, England was not underperforming at all. Contrary to popular opinion, it was over-performing."

-- "Soccer is not only small business business. It's also a bad one. Anyone who spends any time inside soccer discovers that just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the soccer business."

-- "Provincial towns like Nottingham, Glasgow, Dortmund, Birmingham or Rotterdam all have won European Cups, while the seven biggest metropolitan areas in Europe--Istanbul, Paris, Moscow, London, St. Petersburg, Berlin and Athens--never have. This points to an odd connection between city size, capital cities and soccer success."

-- "Against all evidence, the stereotype persists that the typical British fan is a full-on Hornby."

-- "Staging a World Cup won't make you rich, but it does tend to cheer you up." (commenting on, among other things, the bogus arguments that staging a large sports event brings significant positive economic consequences for the host).

But if there is only one chapter that I had to pick out from this book, hands down it is "The Economist's Fear of the Penalty Kick", an absolute riveting look at the scientific side of the dreaded penalty kick. Using the analysis developed in game theory, the authors examine how penalty kicks are taken (by the kicker) and defended (by the keeper). It culminates with an in-depth analysis of the Manchester United-Chelsea penalty shoot-out at the 2008 CHampions League final. "Then, in what must have been a chilling moment for Anelka, the Dutch [keeper] pointed with with his left hand to the left corner. 'That's where you're all putting it, isn't it?' he seemed to be saying. Now Anelka had a terrible dilemma. This was game theory in its rawest form". (You'll have to read the rest of it yourself...)

Of all the books on soccer that I have read in my life time, I cannot recall being more enthralled and entertained than by this book. This is a page-turner from start to finish, and for me one of the very best books of the year, sports or otherwise. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Soccernomics is quite the fun-filled book of stats and soccer. It gives a good understanding of soccer management and delves into some interesting segments with fresh appeal and stimulating thoughts. The chapters on the penalty kicks, most passionate soocer countries and the discussion on why the English team (who I despise) are excellent and are very well written and concisely articluated.

However--there is a caveat. One that I will not forgive so easily. Its the sub-chapter on the NFL vs. the English Premier League. As much as Kuper wants to explain NFL teams are on equal footing in parity with teams in the EPL teams, he couldnt be more wrong. He states that the winning percentage of all teams in the NFL is slightly better than the those in the EPL. How is that possible when Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea or Liverpool have been the only winners for the past 15 years? He states that the Colts and the Pats are the only two teams which have dominated the NFL. Yet, in reality, the Steelers, the Giants, the Saints and the Buccaneers have all won Super Bowls this past decade. Moreover, the Eagles, the Raiders, and the Bears were all teams that came as runner-ups. Furthermore, unlike the EPL which have no playoffs, a plethora of NFL teams have, which have provided at least the chance of winning the Super Bowl unlike Blackburn, NewCastle, West Ham and Fulham which have had no chance. As much as these two authors want me to believe that there is no difference between the NFL and the EPL, there is a massive one, which starts with finance. Unlike the EPL the NFL has a salary cap, which behind all the arguable economic calculations can be simply put in easy words: any NFL team eventually will have a chance. Furthermore, the NFL provides mercy on the worst teams by allowing them to draft first. The EPL blesses those teams that come in first. There are no draft picks. Whomever has the most money gets the best players. Needless to say, the EPL is boring because of its financial impartiality.

I would recommend this book to anyone who's interested in reading another side to soccer--but take it with a grain of salt and some tylenol as some of the content is unbearably hard to read given all the mathematical computations.

Warning: Unfortunately, while the content of this book is good (not groundbreaking, for sure), the publisher's formatting of the Kindle version is completely unreadable. If Kindle owners are interested in this book, I'd suggest buying the paper version.

The entire book is center-justified, there are random hyphens throughout the text, bizarre, random breaks. Basically, it looks like someone scanned a book and uploaded it for Kindle, with not formatting whatsoever. Oddly, I don't believe the sample was formatted like that--only the entire book. The typesetting is done by the publisher, and it's shocking that they'd take so little care with the formatting of their ebook.

I hope this is helpful to folks who are reading on the Kindle.

UPDATE:
My ebook was magically reformatted this evening, following the publishing of this review and my contacting the publisher and Amazon, upon syncing my Kindle, so I assume Amazon was able to fix whatever problem was going on with the Kindle edition--I have no idea if this is specific to my version or if this is still a problem with the Kindle edition.

UPDATE 2: Hooray for Amazon's excellent customer service in immediately refunding this purchase after becoming aware of the formatting problem. Interestingly, the publisher did not respond to my email or Twitter mentions regarding the formatting issue of this ebook.

I first came to know the name Simon Kuper when he was a guest lecturer at a local university in Toronto, Canada. The articulate British author talked about his new novel Soccernomics and some of the core arguments. Despite making some fascinating points about football, he looked uncomfortable and unable to answer some of the questions that the audience prosed in the Q&A period. I was greeted with a great deal of skepticism, but decided to purchase the book anyway.

After reading through the book, I can safely say Soccernomics is fantastic and a must-read for any soccer fan! Stefan Szymanski lives up to his billing as a top sports economist with thorough detail and Kuper fits the part with his commentary including tidbits of witty humour. Correlating statistical analysis with any sport is extremely difficult because you are attempting to satisfy the common reader without flattening the economic methodology. Kuper is to-the-point and articulate in his arguments. Most importantly, he does not make an argument, and then uses statistics to back up his perspective. Rather, he reads through the information, recognizes patterns, and creates a formula. Several fascinating chapters include Core to the Periphery (Guus Hiddink) and why England loses.

Despite the many positives, there are some flaws. At times, the economic analysis is overwhelming and seems suited more for a peer-reviewed journal than a book for the common consumer. As well, some of the variables are far too large (population, income etc) and rarely include common competing variables (other popular sports etc). Furthermore, Kuper is well-travelled and could integrate more of his personal experiences to add some `spice' to the arguments #Hiddink is an excellent example but we also know how he has done speeches at Fenerbahçe Spor Kulübü.

Needless to say, these our not strong enough weaknesses to warrant it a 4-star. All in all, an excellent book and I would highly recommend it.

4.5/5

A well written collaboration between an experienced sports journalist and an economist interests in applying statistical and econometric methods to sports. Definitely pitched to soccer fans, this book is a series of chapters exploring different aspects of soccer. Topics include the nature of fandom, how to function in the transfer market successfully, why some nations do well in international tournaments, the psychology of penalty kicks, profitability of soccer clubs, and several other relevant subjects. The authors generally draw on statistical and economic methods, often drawing on the work of other economists and statisticians interested in sports. The authors generally reach well founded though somewhat iconoclastic conclusions.

For a person almost completely new to soccer, this book was a good introduction to the context of the game. The authors deftly interweave both the political and economic issues involved in both national and international play, for example explaining how soccer began in England and spread throughout the world as part of the British Empire's 'soft power' through the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. There is a good discussion of the export of soccer beyond just Europe, and its more recent penetration outside Europe and Latin America. Unsurprisingly, the main point is that success is a function of population, money, and experience.

The authors generally take a different approach to soccer in each chapter as a digression for analysis of the sport. For example, I found the discussion of whether hosting a major event like the World Cup is an economic benefit or not to be interesting because of a new angle I hadn't heard before: although little additional money actually flows to an area, which is the usual argument for the project, and may even be costly, the population is generally happier for having hosted the event. Yet, politicians are reluctant to frame a debate in terms of 'increasing happiness.' I also enjoyed the discussion of game theory and penalty kicks, how social cohesion from soccer prevents suicides, and the use of Zipf's law.

On the other hand, I found the argument that soccer was 'popular' in the United States unpersuasive, though it depends on how you define popular. Just because kids play alot of soccer, that doesn't make it a major sport in that country. It might be asking too much from a book so in love with the game, but economists should be at least somewhat objective: truth be told, a majority of the world doesn't care about soccer--talk of China is conspicuously absent. In fact, soccer is not the most popular sport in 7 of the 10 most populous countries. The World Cup could just as easily be called the Euro-Latin America Cup, based on who has won the event.

The least successful portions of the book are the ones which are almost purely speculative, but at least the authors acknowledge that their empirical data is shaky, like trying to assess which country 'loves' soccer most, or the best 'little' soccer country on Earth.

Although the authors make many references to the now-classic 'Moneyball', Soccernomics isn't the analog of that book. In Moneyball, one of the most interesting insights was popularizing the newer way of valuing baseball skills, with different statistical measures. Soccernomics doesn't do that. The best it does is make generally anecdotal recommendations: help foreign players relocate, use the 'wisdom of crowds,' or acquire transfers in their early 20s. It doesn't suggest a method like on base percentage did in Moneyball to suggest which transfers might be undervalued. For example, what statistics might Manchester United have used to determine that Diego Forlan, who had feet of clay for England and earned the nickname Diego Forlorn in his disastrous spell with the team, would later become Europe's leading scorer, first with Villareal in 2005 and then with Atletico Madrid in 2009.

Soccernomics is a good introduction to the context of the world's most popular sport and boils down issues of interest to a general audience, but some of the details fray upon closer examination, and it doesn't completely live up to its promise.

...the authors run out of steam before the finish. Some of the chapters - PKs, why England lose, and Guus Hiddink - are very good. The studies on the most soccer-mad country are tedious.

The admission that none of their work can explain Brasil's success is rather a huge hole and makes the entire book seem incompelete. Likewise it's interesting to read that Jose Mourinho is probably the most successful manager in Europe. But why??? Don't just toss that out and leave us hanging!

Based upon the parts of this book that had already been published in the Financial Times, I really expected more than what's here.

BTW the best soccer book ever is The Miracle of Castel di Sangro.

I was very disappointed with this book. After reading reveiws, hearing a couple of interviews, and even reading the sample through my Kindle, I was very excited to read this book, thinking that it would be the "Moneyball" for soccer. However, I find that the use of quotes that the author attributes to managers and players without proof of these statements very misleading. I also do not like the fact that I am always told "we'll get back to that" when in fact if the author would discuss that topic at the time the book might have more flow. Speaking of the flow of the book, it reads more or less like a university thesis then anything else.