A review by henrik_w
Soccernomics by Stefan Szymanski, Simon Kuper
5.0
What a great book! I didn’t really know what to expect, other than that it seemed like a popular book on soccer. It is also rather thick at around 450 pages. But as soon as I started reading I was hooked. It is extremely well written, and endlessly fascinating.
The authors have used statistical analysis in many areas related to soccer, such as penalty shots, manager impact, fan loyalty, most soccer-crazy country and the transfer market. It could have been a rather dry book, but it is not. There are so many interesting observations and conclusions in the chapters, and the writing is top-notch.
I particularly liked the chapter on which city teams have been successful in the European Cup. In it, the authors point out that teams that have been dominating are all from provincial cities, like Manchester, Barcelona, Munich, Marseille and Milan. For the most parts, the capitals have not done so well. As they write: the town of Nottingham still has more trophies – two – than London, Paris, Istanbul, Berlin and Moscow combined. The explanation they offer is that a lot of people moved to industrial towns a century ago, and one thing that united them was soccer. The capitals on the other hand had many other things to unite them, and did not need soccer in the same way. This pattern of which cities have the most successful soccer teams is rather obvious to me once it has been pointed out, yet I never made the connection myself before I read Soccernomics.
I also really liked the chapter on penalty taking. They write about the 2008 Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester United that was decided on penalties. Chelsea had access to research about which side Van der Sar usually was diving to, depending on if the penalty taker was right-footed or left-footed. In the end, Van der Sar figured out the system Chelsea was using, and saved the last penalty to win the game for Manchester United. There are many more examples in this chapter on the use of statistics for penalty taking, and it is fascinating reading.
The chapter towards the end of the book on the rise of Spanish soccer was also very interesting. The authors’ thesis on why some countries are more successful in soccer than others is that the connected-ness and exchange of ideas between countries is the most important factor. Spain is an interesting example. In the 1970s, when Spain became more open, there was a heavy Dutch influence (Johan Cruijff, Rinus Michels) that proved very beneficial for Spanish soccer. The chapter does a very good tracing and analysing this development.
These were three chapters that stood out for me, but that doesn’t mean the others were bad. I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. My only little quibble is that when analysing the importance of the manager for a team, they concluded that it is quite rare that they have a big impact – team results are mostly determined by the quality of the players, with a few notable exceptions such as Alex Ferguson. But in the chapter on the English national team, they conclude that they have performed better with a foreign manager than with local manager. This seems a bit contradictory to me, but perhaps I misunderstood.
All in all though, a really great book. I have recommended it to everybody I know that is interested in soccer.
The authors have used statistical analysis in many areas related to soccer, such as penalty shots, manager impact, fan loyalty, most soccer-crazy country and the transfer market. It could have been a rather dry book, but it is not. There are so many interesting observations and conclusions in the chapters, and the writing is top-notch.
I particularly liked the chapter on which city teams have been successful in the European Cup. In it, the authors point out that teams that have been dominating are all from provincial cities, like Manchester, Barcelona, Munich, Marseille and Milan. For the most parts, the capitals have not done so well. As they write: the town of Nottingham still has more trophies – two – than London, Paris, Istanbul, Berlin and Moscow combined. The explanation they offer is that a lot of people moved to industrial towns a century ago, and one thing that united them was soccer. The capitals on the other hand had many other things to unite them, and did not need soccer in the same way. This pattern of which cities have the most successful soccer teams is rather obvious to me once it has been pointed out, yet I never made the connection myself before I read Soccernomics.
I also really liked the chapter on penalty taking. They write about the 2008 Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester United that was decided on penalties. Chelsea had access to research about which side Van der Sar usually was diving to, depending on if the penalty taker was right-footed or left-footed. In the end, Van der Sar figured out the system Chelsea was using, and saved the last penalty to win the game for Manchester United. There are many more examples in this chapter on the use of statistics for penalty taking, and it is fascinating reading.
The chapter towards the end of the book on the rise of Spanish soccer was also very interesting. The authors’ thesis on why some countries are more successful in soccer than others is that the connected-ness and exchange of ideas between countries is the most important factor. Spain is an interesting example. In the 1970s, when Spain became more open, there was a heavy Dutch influence (Johan Cruijff, Rinus Michels) that proved very beneficial for Spanish soccer. The chapter does a very good tracing and analysing this development.
These were three chapters that stood out for me, but that doesn’t mean the others were bad. I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. My only little quibble is that when analysing the importance of the manager for a team, they concluded that it is quite rare that they have a big impact – team results are mostly determined by the quality of the players, with a few notable exceptions such as Alex Ferguson. But in the chapter on the English national team, they conclude that they have performed better with a foreign manager than with local manager. This seems a bit contradictory to me, but perhaps I misunderstood.
All in all though, a really great book. I have recommended it to everybody I know that is interested in soccer.