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agn946's review
4.0
*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. This is an honest review.*
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. Soccernomics 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).
Also posted on Purple People Readers.
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. Soccernomics 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).
Also posted on Purple People Readers.
eldaaurora97's review
4.0
"Though most fans would probably deny it, a love of soccer is often intertwined with a love of numbers. There are match results, the famous dates, and the special joy of sitting in a coffee shop with your phone in the morning 'reading' the league table. Fantasy soccer leagues are, at bottom, numbers games" (6).
The premise of Soccernomics, written by journalist Simon Kuper and economist Stefan Szymanski, is to look into the statistics of soccer numbers to get a better idea on how the world's most popular sport develops. Starting at the club level, where they dispel myths about transfers and how to get the best team possible, they analyze different ways how soccer is influenced by small things such as blond hair, or larger ones like with economies.
As I read the 2018 edition of the book, I do know certain things have happened since the first version of Soccernomics was published in 2009. One thing I was especially curious was how they would approach Leicester's surprising victory, which they mentioned with the wage bills of a club. Subverting the argument that their manager, Claudio Ranieri, was an inspirational figure, they go into how their defense was strong, and how "Nobody might have noticed Leicester except for another random event: all the usual title contenders had bad seasons simultaneously. That allowed an overachieving midtable team to end up champion" (18). I thought it was an interesting take, which also took into account good players that didn't need to be motivated. However, they also note this may not happen again, because only twice before (Derby County in 1972 and Nottingham Forest in 1978) was such low spending okay as they won the top-league title.
One thing they tried to subvert was how much instinct played a role in making football decisions. A notable example is how managers would buy players out of an international tournament because they did particularly well, which would end up blowing up in their faces because managers only judged on a small set of games. They use the example of John Jensen, a Danish player who joined Arsenal and only scored one goal in his four-year interval. Other examples include how managers would begin by putting their own program in practice, despite their decreasing tenures. It's especially pointed with this quote, "Buying a big name (even if you don't need him) makes every person in the club feel bigger" (27). It was intriguing how the numbers subvert regular conceptions from behind the scenes, even though I don't always notice them.
Another thing they addressed was the paradox between how football was a terrible business to be, but they feared that it would become more successful as such. To get a winning record, teams rarely make money in pursuit of that ambition. "If one owner refused to pay large transfer fees and salaries, somebody else would, and that somebody else would get the best players and win prizes" (75). As Kuper and Szymanski argued that paying players better (or more efficiently throughout) will help them, this doesn't bode well for them. By the end of the sixth chapter, however, they conclude that "The business of soccer is soccer. Clubs shouldn't chase profits. Instead, they should invest every cent they have in the game" (120). In between is the "Crooked Business" chapter, in which they analyze the dark side of soccer, such as corruption and human trafficking towards transfers.
Their writing style is quite informative, though with certain chapters I got lost in the information. One example is with the "Why England Loses" chapter, which made the authors change the subtitle when it was first published. It starts with a hilarious cycle of how the English media portrays their failure in the World Cup. If fate had turned things the other way, "it would have deprived a nation of a ritual that marks the passing of time like Christmas or New Year's and celebrates a certain idea of England: a land of unlucky heroes that no longer rules the world, although it should" (352) They analyze different aspects of the English game, from scoring too early to being cut off from continental European football knowledge. While they paint a clear picture, they also note that it's mostly based on randomness. Though since then, England has won a penalty shoot-out and made it to the World Cup semifinals, haha! So what would this book be like for the 100th anniversary of the World Cup...
That said, I enjoyed Soccernomics; their perspective of the game goes beyond the headlines and analyzes well. I've learned a lot from it, ranging from how soccer prevents people from dying of suicide (rather than causing their deaths via their teams losing) to how connections in Europe made the strongest teams possible (and being one of only two continents to have its countries win the World Cup). We see things from a psychological, economic, and even a game theoretical perspective. Go check it out! (8/10)
The premise of Soccernomics, written by journalist Simon Kuper and economist Stefan Szymanski, is to look into the statistics of soccer numbers to get a better idea on how the world's most popular sport develops. Starting at the club level, where they dispel myths about transfers and how to get the best team possible, they analyze different ways how soccer is influenced by small things such as blond hair, or larger ones like with economies.
As I read the 2018 edition of the book, I do know certain things have happened since the first version of Soccernomics was published in 2009. One thing I was especially curious was how they would approach Leicester's surprising victory, which they mentioned with the wage bills of a club. Subverting the argument that their manager, Claudio Ranieri, was an inspirational figure, they go into how their defense was strong, and how "Nobody might have noticed Leicester except for another random event: all the usual title contenders had bad seasons simultaneously. That allowed an overachieving midtable team to end up champion" (18). I thought it was an interesting take, which also took into account good players that didn't need to be motivated. However, they also note this may not happen again, because only twice before (Derby County in 1972 and Nottingham Forest in 1978) was such low spending okay as they won the top-league title.
One thing they tried to subvert was how much instinct played a role in making football decisions. A notable example is how managers would buy players out of an international tournament because they did particularly well, which would end up blowing up in their faces because managers only judged on a small set of games. They use the example of John Jensen, a Danish player who joined Arsenal and only scored one goal in his four-year interval. Other examples include how managers would begin by putting their own program in practice, despite their decreasing tenures. It's especially pointed with this quote, "Buying a big name (even if you don't need him) makes every person in the club feel bigger" (27). It was intriguing how the numbers subvert regular conceptions from behind the scenes, even though I don't always notice them.
Another thing they addressed was the paradox between how football was a terrible business to be, but they feared that it would become more successful as such. To get a winning record, teams rarely make money in pursuit of that ambition. "If one owner refused to pay large transfer fees and salaries, somebody else would, and that somebody else would get the best players and win prizes" (75). As Kuper and Szymanski argued that paying players better (or more efficiently throughout) will help them, this doesn't bode well for them. By the end of the sixth chapter, however, they conclude that "The business of soccer is soccer. Clubs shouldn't chase profits. Instead, they should invest every cent they have in the game" (120). In between is the "Crooked Business" chapter, in which they analyze the dark side of soccer, such as corruption and human trafficking towards transfers.
Their writing style is quite informative, though with certain chapters I got lost in the information. One example is with the "Why England Loses" chapter, which made the authors change the subtitle when it was first published. It starts with a hilarious cycle of how the English media portrays their failure in the World Cup. If fate had turned things the other way, "it would have deprived a nation of a ritual that marks the passing of time like Christmas or New Year's and celebrates a certain idea of England: a land of unlucky heroes that no longer rules the world, although it should" (352) They analyze different aspects of the English game, from scoring too early to being cut off from continental European football knowledge. While they paint a clear picture, they also note that it's mostly based on randomness. Though since then, England has won a penalty shoot-out and made it to the World Cup semifinals, haha! So what would this book be like for the 100th anniversary of the World Cup...
That said, I enjoyed Soccernomics; their perspective of the game goes beyond the headlines and analyzes well. I've learned a lot from it, ranging from how soccer prevents people from dying of suicide (rather than causing their deaths via their teams losing) to how connections in Europe made the strongest teams possible (and being one of only two continents to have its countries win the World Cup). We see things from a psychological, economic, and even a game theoretical perspective. Go check it out! (8/10)
mhdtim's review
5.0
Required reading for a) any soccer/footy fan or b) anyone interested in how soccer intersects with the world. Parts very dry academia and funny, anecdotal stories covering much of soccer's history and geography.
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