Writing too much about this book will only keep you away from it. Simon and Stefan will change the way you see football and economics - as they have changed mine when the first edition was published in 2010.

Go buy it. Now.

A soccer literature classic! Kuper's tomb on economics and money in the soccer universe is fascinating. I appreciated this updated version to include data and events since that last world cup.

Melissa

Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Spain, Germany, and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S, Japan, Australia, and Even Iraq Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski is a non-fiction book analyzing the economics of soccer around the world, but mainly in the English leagues. This is an updated edition from Mr. Kuper, a soccer writer, and Mr. Szymanski a Collegiate Professor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan’s School of Kinesiology.

Posted by Zohar - Man of la Book on June 6, 2018. Latest Posts - No Comments
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Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Spain, Germany, and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S, Japan, Australia, and Even Iraq Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski is a non-fiction book analyzing the economics of soccer around the world, but mainly in the English leagues. This is an updated edition from Mr. Kuper, a soccer writer, and Mr. Szymanski a Collegiate Professor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan’s School of Kinesiology.

464 pages
Publisher: Nation Books
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1568584814

Buy Soccernomics from Amazon.com*



My rating for Soccernomics – 4
Buy Soccernomics from Amazon.com*
More Books by Simon Kuper
More Books by Stefan Szymanski

Thoughts:
As a fan of soccer (or futbol), not a rabid fan, but I enjoy watching and playing the game, I thought it would be great to read Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Spain, Germany, and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S, Japan, Australia, and Even Iraq Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski to get a bit more excited in the upcoming World Cup (as if we need more excitement). I’m glad I read it, it’s a good book for any fan or even just someone who is interested in the business of sports.

The authors give a lot of credit to Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s who had the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, and a movie by the same name. They admit that Mr. Beane has inspired them and I was surprised to find out he even consults for the English Premiere League.

The book goes into a narrative about salaries, transfer investments, players occupying management positions and more. I especially liked the many anecdotes the authors give along with the points they are trying to make, instead of just giving a few tidbits here and there, or worst, throwing names around.

This book has tons of insights about soccer (including US soccer), with unique perspectives. I enjoyed the author dispelling many myths about the games, winners, and loser even if it got repetitive towards the end.

The first edition of Soccernomics, published in 2009, is a fantastic read showcasing what the social sciences can tell us about soccer and what soccer can tell us about the social sciences. It is fascinating and thoughtful and it should be thoroughly enjoyable to anyone with even a passing interest in the game. So if you haven't read any edition previously and this sounds like your bag, get on that, and pick up this version given it's the most recent.

The rest of this review will assume that you've already read Soccernomics but it was probably over 5 years ago or more and you're wondering whether to pick up this new edition. I'm happy to report that Soccernomis: 2018 World Cup Edition is not merely a cash grab attempting to capitalize on the hype surrounding everyone's favorite quadrennial international sporting spectacle (sorry Olympics) but a thorough revamp with plenty of new material, updated data and research, and reflections on predictions that didn't pan out and speculation as to why that was the case.

The major sections from the first edition appear to be largely present, but they all have been updated to some extent, and not just with lazy references to flavor-of-2018 teams and players, there is some fundamental reworking. Some of the theoretical sections are similar (e.g. the rationale for investing in assimilating foreign players, how a penalty kick is game theory masquerading as a high-stakes tie-match-deciding device, the countries punching the highest above their weight in the sport) but many of the examples are new and sometimes the theories are amended in light of recent findings and there is analysis of recent crazy happenings such as how Leicester City won the Premier League.

Essentially, if you enjoyed reading Soccernomics the first time, I definitely recommend picking up this book as it is basically more of the same. Yes, some material will be familiar, but the update is comprehensive enough to warrant another purchase/borrow.

8/10

I read the first version of this book, then called Why England Lose, when it was first published and really enjoyed it. The latest edition is even better. The authors avoided simply re-publishing the same old book, instead re-examining their conclusions and ensuring this edition is fresh and up to date.

The book is essentially Freakonomics applied to football, with some Moneyball thrown in. The authors use statistics to disprove the prevailing wisdom on how football functions and how to be successful in the game. It covers a wide gambit of football related issues – ranging from how to play the transfer market well, what national teams overperform and how loyal fans really are.

The authors attempt to look globally in scope but the book focuses on European football largely because that is where the best data sources are found. It is a long read and covers a huge amount of detail. It is best enjoyed in chapter sized chunks to leave time to think about it rather than flying through and finding yourself overwhelmed in the detail. Some chapters are better than others – discussions on which national team over performs got tiring, and felt like a repeat of the discussion on why England lose. By contrast, the chapter on penalty shootouts and game theory was brilliant and insightful.

In particular, the book left me wanting to find a good book on the rise of Olympique Lyonnais and how they used clever transfers to dominate French football before the oil baron PSG took over. The “wisdom of crowds” theory put forward in the book doesn’t really seem convincing to me as transfer committees at other clubs have been anything but successful. Any recommendations would be greatly welcome.

I enjoyed the book but in some ways I would hesitate to recommend it for everyone. I’m not sure how much a non-nerdy fan would enjoy it. It’s probably safe to say that if you think a “statistical look at football” sounds like fun, you’ll enjoy this book a lot. Given its huge sales numbers there must be more of us football nerds out their than I thought!

I am marginally a soccer fan.  I used to follow the English Premiership very closely when I was in high school and college, and I always get excited for the World Cup.  These days, I tend to mostly get reinvested in soccer during US qualifying for the World Cup (sigh) through the World Cup and just kind of casually absorb other games from time to time.

That said, this book is coming out right at a time that my interest in the soccer is beginning to ramp up again.  <em>Soccernomics</em> is written by a sports economist and journalist who attempt to take an economic approach of examining various topics in soccer.  I think that the two authors do a really nice job balancing each other and being upfront about when they have disagreements or biases (this second point being especially important since, in a lot of ways, the book is trying to remove biases from the equation).

The book spends a lot of time focusing on the traditional economics of the sport, like how clubs can make money and how money is spent in the transfer windows (as you would expect from title).  These discussions are interesting to a degree, and if you are really interested in economics, then this would be quite a strength of the book.  However, with few exceptions, I found these parts of the book to be the least interesting.  Besides having some clever ways of explaining how important players are, or going into the process by which a lot of decisions are made in the transfer markets, I found myself often skimming past some of the more intense sections of these parts of the book.

Now the above may make it seem like I did not enjoy the book, but the truth is where I think the book really shines is by using economics/statistics to analyze things that are completely outside the "economy" of soccer in terms of the money spent.  When the book attempts to answer questions like: Is soccer statistically racist? or What effect do clubs have on fans? (and vice versa) it is at its strongest and most interesting, in my opinion.  These are topics that I think the average soccer fan has thought about a lot but may not have had a way to think about it in any sort of objective way.  Being able to see information that, at times, confirms gut instincts and, at other times, exposes them was something that I thoroughly enjoyed throughout my read.

While the book does try to focus on soccer as a global game, I will just add a warning that there is an inordinate focus on the English Premiership for examples and data.  It is not exclusive and I think that the authors do a good job explaining the important information of whatever examples they bring up, but I think to get the most out of the book, you would need to have at least a minor familiarity with the English Premiership and Leagues in general.  This is somewhat less true in the last section that focuses on the World Cup.

Overall, the book was a really interesting read and I would recommend it as an excellent tool to satisfy any craving for soccer material you may have (in the lead to a World Cup, like myself, or otherwise).