SOCCERNOMICS NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller International Bestseller
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4color process, CMYK matte lamination + spot gloss (p.2) + emboss (p.3) SPORTS/SOCCER SOCCERNOMICS NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER “As an avid fan of the game and a fi rm believer in the power that such objective namEd onE oF thE “bEst booKs oF thE yEar” BY GUARDIAN, SLATE, analysis can bring to sports, I was captivated by this book. Soccernomics is an FINANCIAL TIMES, INDEPENDENT (UK), AND BLOOMBERG NEWS absolute must-read.” —BillY BEANE, General Manager of the Oakland A’s SOCCERNOMICS pioneers a new way of looking at soccer through meticulous, empirical analysis and incisive, witty commentary. The San Francisco Chronicle describes it as “the most intelligent book ever written about soccer.” This World Cup edition features new material, including a provocative examination of how soccer SOCCERNOMICS clubs might actually start making profi ts, why that’s undesirable, and how soccer’s never had it so good. WHY ENGLAND LOSES, WHY SPAIN, GERMANY, “read this book.” —New York Times AND BRAZIL WIN, AND WHY THE US, JAPAN, aUstralia– AND EVEN IRAQ–ARE DESTINED “gripping and essential.” —Slate “ Quite magnificent. A sort of Freakonomics TO BECOME THE kings of the world’s for soccer.” —JONATHAN WILSON, Guardian MOST POPULAR SPORT STEFAN SZYMANSKI STEFAN SIMON KUPER SIMON kupER is one of the world’s leading writers on soccer. The winner of the William Hill Prize for sports book of the year in Britain, Kuper writes a weekly column for the Financial Times. He lives in Paris, France. StEfaN SzyMaNSkI is the Stephen J. Galetti Collegiate Professor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan’s School of Kinesiology. Tim Harford has called him “one of the world’s leading sports economists.” He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. AND $16.99/$19.99 CAN A Member of the Perseus Books Group SIMON KUPER AND STEFAN SZYMANSKI www.nationbooks.org COVER DESIGN BY JONATHAN SAINSBURY | COVER IMAGE © MARK ROSS / ISTOCK WORLD CUP EDITION PRAISE FOR SOCCERNOMICS “Soccernomics is the most intelligent book ever written about soccer.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Many explanations [of England’s poor form] can be found in the book Soccernomics in a segment entitled ‘Why England Loses.’ (This is well worth a read for any English football fan; essentially, you overvalue your football heritage and undervalue the benefits of innovation.)” —Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics “Fascinating.” —VanityFair.com “The authors take what ‘everybody’ knows about success and failure in soccer and subject it to rigorous empirical analysis embedded in good sto- ries that carry the narrative along. Highly recommended. All readers.” —Choice “It’s a really good book. If more people read it, they’d understand some of the reasons why England [doesn’t] win. Everyone can have an opinion, but they back it up with stats.” —Jamie Carragher, Liverpool F.C. “Soccernomics [is] a sharply written and provocative examination of the world’s game seen through the prism of economics and statistical data. It demolishes almost everything that most soccer fans believe about the game and how professional soccer teams should operate.” —Globe and Mail (Canada) “Oh, Rooney’s the best. [My son] Ben thinks that England might be in the top four, but that’s it. He knows the starting lineup of every European team. We’re reading this very interesting book about [soccer] together.” —Lorrie Moore, author of A Gate at the Stairs and Birds of America 9781568584812-text.indd 1 2/20/14 11:35 AM “With Soccernomics, the Financial Times’ indispensable Simon Kuper and top-flight sports economist Stefan Szymanski bring scrupulous economic analysis and statistical rigor to a sport long dependent on hoary—and, it seems, unfounded—assumptions. Gripping and essential.” —Slate.com, Best Books of 2009 “[The book] is a sporting tale in the Freakonomics mode of inquiry, using statistics to come up with fascinating conclusions.” —Independent (UK), Best Books of 2009 “[Szymanski and Kuper] entertainingly demolish soccer shibboleths. Well argued and clear headed.” —Financial Times, Best Books of 2009 “Using data analysis, history and psychology, [Soccernomics] punctures dozens of clichés about what it takes to win, and who makes money in soccer—and in sports in general.” —Associated Press “There just aren’t that many interesting, intelligent, analytical books about the world’s most popular game, but this is one.” —Blogcritics “A must read for any fan of the business of soccer. .” —Footiebusiness.com “Soccernomics . tackles the soccer world’s most probing questions with a dispassionate analysis based on economic formulas, which separate fact from accepted-as-fact myths perpetuated by legions of fans.” —Forbes.com “It’s quite a book. Soccernomics explains how the lessons of Moneyball (sports teams are not completely rational) apply to the world’s favorite sport.” —Huffington Post “[Kuper and Szymanski] do for soccer what Moneyball did for baseball. It puts the game under an analytical microscope using statistics, economics, psychology and intuition to try to transform a dogmatic sport.” —New York Times “It’s a fascinating book with the potential to effect genuine change in the sport.” —Booklist (starred) 9781568584812-text.indd 2 2/20/14 11:35 AM “Small book, big wallop! . Enthusiastically recommended to all soccer fans, general and specialized, as well as those thinking of becoming one.” —Library Journal “[Kuper and Szymanski] have created a blend of Freakonomics and Fever Pitch, bringing surprising economic analysis to bear on the world’s most popular sport. This mix of economic analysis and anecdote makes for a thought-provoking, often amusing read. Here, at last, is a British answer to Michael Lewis’s baseball-meets-cash bestseller Moneyball.” —Bloomberg News “[Kuper and Szymanski] combine their skills to entertaining and mostly convincing effect.” —Economist “If you’re a football fan, I’ll save you some time: read this book . compul- sive reading . thoroughly convincing.” —Daily Telegraph (UK) “Szymanski 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.” —Observer (UK) “[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 send- ing to your team’s chairman. ” —Metro (UK) “More thoughtful than most of its rivals and, by football standards, pos- itively intellectual. Kuper, a brilliantly contrary columnist, and Szy- manski, an economics professor . find plenty of fertile territory in their commendable determination to overturn the lazy preconceptions rife in football.” —The Times (UK) “Kuper and Szymanski are . a highly effective and scrupulously ratio- nal 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 demonstrate the limits of con- ventional thinking in football, as well as the real patterns of behaviour that shape sporting outcomes.” —Prospect (UK) 9781568584812-text.indd 3 2/20/14 11:35 AM “Books about sport are a bit like players—some are pretty dreadful, most are about the same standard and so don’t really stand out, and occasion- ally one comes along that excels to the point that they change the way you watch and think about the game. Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski is such a book. Any fan of the Socceroos who reads Soccernomics or indeed any sports fan ready to take on board new ways of thinking might, like me, never look at a penalty kick or a league table and certainly not follow a major international tournament quite the same way again.” —Peter Newlinds, ABC News (Australia) “Should still be compulsory reading for all poor suffering England fans.” —Jim O’Neill, Former Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management 9781568584812-text.indd 4 2/20/14 11:35 AM SOCCERNOMICS 9781568584812-text.indd 5 2/20/14 11:35 AM ALSO BY SIMON KUPER Retourtjes Nederland (Atlas, 2006) Soccer Against the Enemy (Nation Books, 2006) Soccer Men: Profiles of the Rogues, Geniuses, and Neurotics Who Dominate the World’s Most Popular Sport (Nation Books, 2011) Ajax, the Dutch, the War: The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe’s Darkest Hour (Nation Books, 2012) ALSO BY STEFAN SZYMANSKI Fans of the World, Unite! A Capitalist Manifesto for Sports Consumers (with Stephen F. Ross; Stanford University Press, 2008) Il business del calcio (with Umberto Lago and Alessandro Baroncelli; Egea, 2004) National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer (with Andrew Zimbalist; Brookings Institution, 2005) Playbooks and Checkbooks: An Introduction to the Economics of Modern Sports (Princeton University Press, 2009) Winners and Losers: The Business Strategy of Football (with Tim Kuypers; Viking Books, 1999; Penguin Books, 2000) BOOKS EDITED: Handbook on the Economics of Sport (with Wladimir Andreff; Edward Elgar, 2006) Transatlantic Sports: The Comparative Economics of North American and European Sports (with Carlos Barros and Murad Ibrahim; Edward Elgar, 2002) 9781568584812-text.indd 6 2/20/14 11:35 AM SOCCERNOMICS Why England Loses, Why Spain, Germany, and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, Australia— and Even Iraq—Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski New York 9781568584812-text.indd 7 2/20/14 11:35 AM Copyright © 2014 by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski Published by Nation Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group 116 East 16th Street, 8th Floor New York, NY 10003 Nation Books is a co-publishing venture of the Nation Institute and the Perseus Books Group. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.