Simon Kuper - Soccernomics (World Cup Edition)

PRAISE FOR SOCCERNOMICS

Soccernomics is the most intelligent book ever written about soccer. San Francisco Chronicle

Many explanations [of Englands 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 stories that carry the narrative along.... Highly recommended. All readers. Choice

Its a really good book. If more people read it, theyd understand some of the reasons why England [doesnt] 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 worlds 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, Rooneys the best. [My son] Ben thinks that England might be in the top four, but thats it. He knows the starting lineup of every European team. Were reading this very interesting book about [soccer] together. Lorrie Moore, author of A Gate at the Stairs and Birds of America

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 hoaryand, it seems, unfoundedassumptions.... 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 clichs about what it takes to win, and who makes money in soccerand in sports in general. Associated Press

There just arent that many interesting, intelligent, analytical books about the worlds 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 worlds 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

Its quite a book.... Soccernomics explains how the lessons of Moneyball (sports teams are not completely rational) apply to the worlds 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

Its a fascinating book with the potential to effect genuine change in the sport. Booklist (starred)

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 worlds 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 Lewiss baseball-meets-cash bestseller Moneyball. Bloomberg News

[Kuper and Szymanski] combine their skills to entertaining and mostly convincing effect. Economist

If youre a football fan, Ill save you some time: read this book... compulsive 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 clich about football you ever held to be true. Its bravura stuff... the study of managers buying players and building a club is one youll feel like photocopying and sending to your teams chairman.... Metro (UK)

More thoughtful than most of its rivals and, by football standards, positively 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. The Times (UK)

Kuper and Szymanski are... a highly effective and scrupulously rational team, combining the formers detailed and nuanced understanding of European football with the latters sophisticated econometric analysis. With a remarkable lightness of touch, they demonstrate the limits of conventional thinking in football, as well as the real patterns of behaviour that shape sporting outcomes. Prospect (UK)

Books about sport are a bit like playerssome are pretty dreadful, most are about the same standard and so dont really stand out, and occasionally 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 ONeill, Former Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management

SOCCERNOMICS

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 Worlds Most Popular Sport (Nation Books, 2011)

Ajax, the Dutch, the War: The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europes 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)

Copyright 2014 by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

Published by Nation Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group