There's a growing canon of soccer literature. From Nick Hornby's very English, “Bloke-ish” Fever Pitch and his soccer essays to David Goldblatt's witty and eclectic The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football, soccer writing in English is moving close to matching the urbane writing about the game that has flourished in Spanish, Italian and Dutch.
Now, along comes Soccernomics, 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.
It also cockily asserts that, soon, the United States, Japan, China and Turkey might challenge the traditional powers in Europe and South America for dominance at the elite level of the sport. This is largely based on population size, interest in soccer and improving levels of wealth and health.
Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey – Even Iraq – Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport, by Simon Kuper and Stefan Syzmanski, Nation Books, 328 pages, $18.95
It is in this area that book might inspire the cry of “lies, damned lies and statistics.” There's a huge interest in soccer in China, but the Chinese soccer leagues are famously corrupt. The authors could be correct about the United States, though, and next summer's World Cup will prove or disprove the notion.
The co-authors make an ideal couple. Simon Kuper is the author of Football Against the Enemy, a 1994 book that chronicled his nine-month journey around the world to examine links between soccer and politics. It is now considered a classic, one of the best sports books ever written. Stefan Szymanski is a professor of economics and director of the MBA program at the City University, London. He's a number-cruncher of some note. And it's number-crunching that matters here. No nostalgia for soccer's past appears, no feel-good story about upset victories and players overcoming injury. It's about numbers, patterns and business models.
The acknowledged inspiration is Michael Lewis's Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, the 2003 book that explained how Billy Beane, general manager of baseball's Oakland A's, used statistical data rather than traditional baseball methods to turn his team into a powerhouse.
The country that loves soccer the most is Norway
A major theme in Soccernomics is the burden of tradition on how soccer clubs are run. Managers are hired too soon, barely interviewed and usually proceed to buy big-name players to resolve a crisis. This, the authors point out, keeps the fans happy, but is a suicidal pattern.
Among the glaring points they make is the absurdity of signing players who have shone at a World Cup or European Championship. Such players never recapture that level of excellence and cannot be expected to be that outstanding on a day-in, day-out basis playing for a club rather than their national team. (Step forward Milan Baros, the Czech player who scored more goals than anyone at Euro 2004. Since then, he has played for Aston Villa and Portsmouth in England, Olympique Lyonnais in France and Galatasaray in Turkey, costing each club a fortune to procure, and never reaching those Euro 2004 heights again.)
They also point out that there's usually an over-abundance of blond players being recommended by club scouts. This happens, they say, because scouts scanning a game involving 22 similar-looking players notice the blond-haired players more, because they stand out.
