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A review by robthereader
Soccernomics by Simon Kuper, Stefan Szymanski
4.0
Soccernomics with its title and writing combines probably my two favorite reading subjects, soccer and economics. In terms of non-book related reading, I probably spend a hour or two a week consuming the different melodramas that revolve around the global game as well as the business of it (I know maybe not the best use of time but hardly the worst vice). Taking that into account, I had high hopes for this after stashing it in my shelf for sometime. In the end and after finishing it, I was left with a mixed sense of both fulfillment and disappointment that had me teetering in giving this a three star rating before bumping it up to four in reflection that there were several insightful chapters with experts in the fields of soccer, economics and data science and I read it in a few quick spurts.
Starting with the issues of the work, one can not ignore, however unfair it may be, that a good chunk of its information is now dated, seven years later even not accounting for the global economic turning on its head event of the Covid 19 pandemic. There are chapters dedicated to Barcelona’s prolific academy (once a true romantic story, now much less so with the background politics and mismanagement) and soccer clubs never disappearing (one of the 94 teams in the fabled english soccer system closed before Covid with another two coming close afterwards) to name two shortsighted inspections. There is also a weird proclivity to tout Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s GM of Moneyball fame, as if it was a buff piece for how his insights are now a main driver in soccer recruitment (Doubtful as buying low and selling high has been the merchant’s game for millennia). Finally, their megadata studies seem faulty in their sources and methods which to their credit, they acknowledge most of the time.
Brushing this all aside, Simon and Steven do a great job of interviewing some of the game’s top brains and using megadata sets focused on individual countries and clubs. Highlights include their chapter dedicated to the luck or rather better defined odds of penalty taking, the importance of coaches or rather lack there of and how to research and prove of discrimination in the workplace against PoCs through wage variation versus performance. Their hot takes beat plenty of prominent sportswriters and armchair analysts to the punchline in predicting the sealed off upper echelon through UEFA’s financial fair play, the celebration of Iceland’s fandom and intuition to create soccer ability from such a small population and the flooding of soccer with superfluous data. They do a remarkable job in detaching themselves from the economics train of thought of Markets, Markets, Markets and GDP to explore the real reason sport benefits society, general happiness. They even go through the math, again not using the most directly corresponding data sets, to prove this.
Finally, they probably make their biggest statement on what relates the game and business of soccer to economics, the use of internationalism and free trade to continuously improve. Whether that is through the importation of the world’s best players to the Premier league or the exportation of the game and then central Europe’s cosmopolitan tactics to the edges of the world, soccer truly is the world’s game. They predict that this trend will lead to the rise of new world soccer powers in the far east and the US at the expense of traditional middleweights who have less room for growth. In an era where leaders are waging trade wars, borders are closing and idea exchange is challenged with the new normal of telecommuting, one must not forget that change and the rate of change only improve when novel and scientific ideas are encouraged to be spread, debated and accepted. If that is kept in mind, maybe Simon and Stefan will be proven right and the US can win a world cup in the next 50 years.
Starting with the issues of the work, one can not ignore, however unfair it may be, that a good chunk of its information is now dated, seven years later even not accounting for the global economic turning on its head event of the Covid 19 pandemic. There are chapters dedicated to Barcelona’s prolific academy (once a true romantic story, now much less so with the background politics and mismanagement) and soccer clubs never disappearing (one of the 94 teams in the fabled english soccer system closed before Covid with another two coming close afterwards) to name two shortsighted inspections. There is also a weird proclivity to tout Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s GM of Moneyball fame, as if it was a buff piece for how his insights are now a main driver in soccer recruitment (Doubtful as buying low and selling high has been the merchant’s game for millennia). Finally, their megadata studies seem faulty in their sources and methods which to their credit, they acknowledge most of the time.
Brushing this all aside, Simon and Steven do a great job of interviewing some of the game’s top brains and using megadata sets focused on individual countries and clubs. Highlights include their chapter dedicated to the luck or rather better defined odds of penalty taking, the importance of coaches or rather lack there of and how to research and prove of discrimination in the workplace against PoCs through wage variation versus performance. Their hot takes beat plenty of prominent sportswriters and armchair analysts to the punchline in predicting the sealed off upper echelon through UEFA’s financial fair play, the celebration of Iceland’s fandom and intuition to create soccer ability from such a small population and the flooding of soccer with superfluous data. They do a remarkable job in detaching themselves from the economics train of thought of Markets, Markets, Markets and GDP to explore the real reason sport benefits society, general happiness. They even go through the math, again not using the most directly corresponding data sets, to prove this.
Finally, they probably make their biggest statement on what relates the game and business of soccer to economics, the use of internationalism and free trade to continuously improve. Whether that is through the importation of the world’s best players to the Premier league or the exportation of the game and then central Europe’s cosmopolitan tactics to the edges of the world, soccer truly is the world’s game. They predict that this trend will lead to the rise of new world soccer powers in the far east and the US at the expense of traditional middleweights who have less room for growth. In an era where leaders are waging trade wars, borders are closing and idea exchange is challenged with the new normal of telecommuting, one must not forget that change and the rate of change only improve when novel and scientific ideas are encouraged to be spread, debated and accepted. If that is kept in mind, maybe Simon and Stefan will be proven right and the US can win a world cup in the next 50 years.