Soccerhead: An Accidental Journey into the Heart of the American Game (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: youth coaches, youth athletics, youth soccer, United States, New York, New Jersey (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The year his son turned six, Haner was shanghaied by a group of local parents into coaching the College Park Hornets, a scrappy group of boys (and one girl) finding their legs on the pee-wee soccer fields outside Washington, D.C. His book charts his ensuing obsession with the sport in language as brisk as the game. Between weekly matches, Haner, a Baltimore Sun writer, pores over books, visits fabled soccer homelands and interviews legends to uncover the American heart of this foreign game. Although Native Americans played a version of soccer with a deerskin ball, the sport really took root in the U.S. in the 1930s, when immigrant workers played in raucous leagues. Walter Bahr, who took the winning shot against the English in a 1950 World Cup game, tells Haner how his team of blue-collar laborers stunned some of the world's best players. But Haner learns the essence of the sport from his kids. Watching them play, he sees how fluidity, creativity and trust reign in this simple game. After the Hornets lose a county championship, Haner concludes, "There is a God... and he gave us soccer at the dawn of time so that we would never forget who is in charge." (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* As soccer's popularity grows in the U.S., conventional wisdom holds that the game is a recent arrival, perhaps a product of globalization. Haner tells us that what we're seeing is not new, but a reprise--and that soccer first blossomed during a much earlier phase of globalization: America's early-twentieth-century flood of immigration. An award-winning writer for the Baltimore Sun, Haner started out as a football fan, not a soccerhead. But he became a full-fledged fanatic after taking a step American dads and moms take every day: he became a coach. Frustrated by his tactical failures and intrigued by tales of tough U.S. textile workers taking on Europe's best teams, Haner's quest for knowledge led him to coaching success and one hell of a good book. His enthusiasm and good humor is infectious, the history is genuinely interesting, and anyone who doubts that soccer games between nine-year-olds can be chronicled with the same verve and intensity of professional or collegiate sports need look no further. And, with the 2006 World Cup fast approaching, this is remarkably timely. Belongs with Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World (2004) as a must-read for people puzzled by soccer's popularity. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press (April 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865477337
• ISBN-13: 978-0865477339
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #481,608 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So, you want to coach Soccer, your kid plays soccer..., April 17, 2006

By	Lance C. Van Winter "Lance Van Winter" (Potomac Maryland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Soccerhead: An Accidental Journey into the Heart of the American Game (Hardcover)

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.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vivid and entertaining...even for non-soccerheads, May 7, 2006

By	Michael S. Dobson (Bethesda, MD United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Soccerhead: An Accidental Journey into the Heart of the American Game (Hardcover)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humorous and accurate, April 27, 2006

By	Paul Lunceford - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soccerhead: An Accidental Journey into the Heart of the American Game (Hardcover)

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.