Reviews

Soccernomics by Stefan Szymanski, Simon Kuper

archstanton's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.75

sydneykae's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

3.5

mark_riv1's review

challenging informative slow-paced

2.75

erikakiana's review against another edition

3.0

I have mixed feelings on this book. I was really excited to read this when I first got it, but then the first 100 or so pages were kind of dry and difficult to get through. I ended up saying to myself that I just needed to sit down and finish it.

First off, this is the second edition, published in 2013. Well it is definitely in need of an update now. In the four years since they rereleased the book, Real Madrid has won two Champions Leagues, there was a world cup and a Euro, and Manchester United has gone into disarray. They spend so much time lauding Manchester United, which made me laugh to myself, especially when they said "No one would refer to Manchester United as boring." ... well now they do! Oddly, one of the parts that holds up still is Arsenal ...

That's the thing though with statistics. They are fascinating, but they can also be manipulated and are misleading. And especially in the world of soccer, things are constantly changing. A lot of the coaches and players mentioned are still relevant, but are with other teams. I think it'd be interesting for them to have something in there about Leicester City and their fairy tale of a run last season.

jdemster's review against another edition

5.0

The real success of this book is how it manages to go both wide and deep with the scope of its topics. The authors lay out thesis and method for a tremendous range of topics. There is some fascinating exploration on how the economic realities of certain areas of the world effect their soccer, and it puts a lot of perspective on the current state of the USMNT for fans of the US. There is a pretty strong bias towards European soccer, but that is mostly based in their methodology and the reality of how difficult it is to compare histories from so many areas of the world. Europe lends itself most readily to comparison. However it's something worth knowing going in.

Great book for people who love the game and are curious about the universe in which it exists.

leslielu67's review against another edition

3.0

This book tries to be Freakonomics for soccer, but it needed a good editor - should have been at least 75 pages shorter. The authors will spend four pages detailing how a certain statistic was derived, and then throw out "many soccer moms are glad that soccer is not a big professional sport like basketball or football...they are wary of big-time American sports, where stars do lousy and unethical things like shooting their limo driver." WHAT!!? And "it's striking how many of the most enthusiastic soccer players live on little islands where there presumedly isn't much else to do but play soccer and watch the waves roll in." Support your statements, or leave it out, S&S.

adhvaya's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

4.25

matthewwester's review against another edition

5.0

This book is a deep dive analysis into all things soccer. It verges on academic, with statistics and studies galore, but it succeeds in drawing out fascinating conclusions the same way Freakonomics generally does. If analyzing the why of soccer interests you then this book is a must have.

salexander7341's review against another edition

1.0

I picked up Soccernomics because of my love of the game and my previous experiences reading Freakonomics . I may have gone into it with a improper mindset, but I count myself as amazingly disappointed in the book. In my estimation, it had 3 primary flaws, which I shall elaborate.

1. It isn't insightful.

Almost nothing in this book is insightful. If you like Freakonomics because it poses fascinating questions, or at least uses statistics to suggest weird possibilities, this book is not for you. Most of the topics covered in the book are your typical soccer discussions, like "Why doesn't England win the World Cup" and why are so many great players from poor backgrounds. The problem is, the authors regularly take a trip around the world to answer a question they actually answer in about 2 paragraphs at the end of the chapter like it is some great wisdom. Take for instance the intersection of poverty and later sporting success. This chapter starts by suggesting that poverty has little to do with it, because if you grew up in a poor neighborhood in Paris then you are not actually that poor. They imply that they will reveal some other factor, something you have
not considered, that will explain this. So the book proceeds by creating a throughly arbitrary system of points based on international success in various sports that shows us that, surprise, rich countries are good at sports, which also holds true per capita. Then, in the last two pages, they tell you that Malcolm Gladwell [fantastic author] answered this question to their satisfaction decades ago, and everything they told you was not really anything new. Poverty does create the result we see.

To explain, these players in a Paris neighborhood experience relative poverty, or lack of resources compared to those around you. In impoverished countries, people more commonly experience "absolute poverty," or the lack of basic necessities. These are both social problems, but they are not the same thing. The worst part of all of this is that I just explained the information better than they do. Their 20 page chapter could be reduced to a few sentences without even their involvement.

This is how each chapter generally takes place.

2. It's ten years old.

This is a simple problem, and not the authors' fault. Reading this book now is akin to reading early sabermetrics and being surprised at what you learn. The concepts discussed in this book have permeated the discussion of the sport to the degree that this book feels largely elementary in the present day. Again, it is not the authors' fault that their book did not age well, but it is important to know if you are considering reading it.

3. The casual treatment of statistics.

The authors' present each chapter as some question answered by an interesting application of statistics. Frequently, while the questions may disappoint in their lack of ingenuity (see 1), the statistics do suggest interesting possibilities. The problems arise because anyone with a above-casual familiarity with statistics (or a deep interest in the game and paying attention) with see immediate problems. Whole statistical conceptions will ignore easy improvements. An entire chapter hinging on "Which country most outperforms their demographic stats in world football?" falls apart about a paragraph in when you wonder why they haven't considered using Elo ratings to measure the level of competition. At first, we get straight win-loss comparisons, which the author's acknowledge is not very insightful. By the end of their "improvements," we get to an idea best summarized as: "Only European teams play good opponents most of the time so it is impossible to tell outside of Europe." Except we can, with Elo (which existed 10 years ago).

This book had me regularly wondering why they were ignoring a major flaw or improvement in their model, especially once they would behave as if the problem was unsolvable. They would see the error, but could not fathom ways to fix it (in one case, remembering that standard deviations exist would have made some information more useful). At some times, the book indicated gross misreadings of the data they presented (or at the very least, they explained it so poorly as to be indistinguishable for misunderstanding their data). At other times, obvious variables were omitted that would have better explained the data, or real-life factors that should inform the analysis were dismissed as irrelevant.

In summary, if you want to read a book that is just a rehash of other, better, books (usually directly quoted in the chapters), this book is for you. If you want to read a book that is out of date by 10 years and may have been out of date at publishing, this book is for you. If you want to wonder how two professionals could have thought so little about the statistics or how the world works to inform their analysis, this book is for you.

It wasn't for me.

tbueno's review against another edition

3.0

I like the way it mixes economics with soccer, gathering tons of data and reveling unexpected facts about Football.

I gave it a 3 stars because it is too England centered. I understand that the authors are more familiar with UK clubs and it is easier to get statistical data about Britain football, but it lacks a world context in a lot of the explanations.

Is that possible write about football without barely mention Brazil? A lot of the ideas described in the book simply don't apply to other countries. Use geographic/political context to explain how a nation is better that another in Europe may make sense, but it doesn't apply to countries like Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and even US.