Books!

Who doesn't love reading a good book? No one that's who. Now what would you say if I could recommend you some good reads on soccer, would you be interested? Of course you would! So everyone once in a while I'll recommend some good soccer reads and give you a quick synopsis and what I rate it, plus a nice Amazon link should you be so inclined to purchase said book(s). 

 This guy knows what I'm talking about

So without further ado I present the first book.

Soccernomics is a book that takes the economics and numbers of soccer and tries to disprove or prove many known "facts" of the game. It is essentially Moneyball (with less Brad Pitt and more Monty Python) for soccer, with the main difference being that Moneyball was done on a micro level and Soccernomics is done more on a Macro level. Don't worry if you haven't taken any Econ classes, it is well written and explained for the layman to understand. 


Overall I thought it was a pretty solid read, they bring up a lot of fun and interesting points. The book talks about subjects such as racism in soccer and how it hurts teams, how most teams don't even turn a profit and shouldn't be run like a business, and which countries will come to dominate the sport in the future. On the flip side I thought some of the statistical analysis was useless and off-base but what I really wanted from the book was more of an analysis on the South American countries. I wanted to know why even though both Mexico and Brazil both had huge populations that loved soccer, why one has won 5 World Cups and one has won zero. The book mainly focuses on Europe, and even more so on England (I suppose that is to be expected when it was written by two Englishmen).


Overall I definitely enjoyed it, but it wasn't perfect. Does it get a recommendation? Yes.


7/10 Link to Amazon.com

Here we have Soccer Men by Simon Kuper. Simon Kuper co-wrote Soccernomics so I kind of had a feeling for what I was in for. This book takes a journalistic approach rather an economic one. The book is not actually a book, but rather a series of articles written for a magazine on specific players over the past two decades. Each of the 65 chapters (roughly ten pages each) follows one specific player or manager. It has your big glamorous players, and a couple not as well known players. 


This book really provides a window into a professional players life. Soccer Men is both insightful and entertaining and I found myself reading some chapters multiple times. The real beauty of the book is that you can really skip around and read whatever chapter you want since there is no correlation between them. So if you are just waiting ten minutes before class or eating lunch by yourself you can whip this baby out and read about how crazy Jose Mourinho is.


Overall I found myself really enjoying this book more than the previous one and certainly recommend it to any soccer fan.


9/10 Link to Amazon

Holy crap these books kick ass