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A review by ejdecoster
Soccer Men: Profiles of the Rogues, Geniuses, and Neurotics Who Dominate the World's Most Popular Sport by Simon Kuper
3.0
In some ways, this book was totally on target for me: a lot of coverage of English player (nationals and league), followed by the Dutch (nationals more than league), some French (nationals) and Spanish (Barcelona) players. I'm not personally enthused by Italian soccer so I didn't find their absences to feel like omissions. Asian players are basically absent from the discussion, and the South American and African players have limited representation. Kuper writes for Western European papers, so clubs and national teams in that area are over-sampled; it's a dynamic probably familiar to soccer fans.
As Kuper warns in the beginning, many soccer players just aren't that "interesting", at least in the sense they rarely share interesting insights or information during interviews. Kuper inserts some observations that I think would engage enthusiasts, mixing in strategy and team histories, but these profiles are relatively short and aren't likely to hook most readers. I can't tell from just this book if all Kuper's writing is this bloodless, or if it's the nature of the topic that doesn't stretch to draw in the reader.
To be clear, the edition I got my hands on from the library is the first paperback edition, so didn't contain the updates/additions of the later 2014 reprint.
As Kuper warns in the beginning, many soccer players just aren't that "interesting", at least in the sense they rarely share interesting insights or information during interviews. Kuper inserts some observations that I think would engage enthusiasts, mixing in strategy and team histories, but these profiles are relatively short and aren't likely to hook most readers. I can't tell from just this book if all Kuper's writing is this bloodless, or if it's the nature of the topic that doesn't stretch to draw in the reader.
To be clear, the edition I got my hands on from the library is the first paperback edition, so didn't contain the updates/additions of the later 2014 reprint.