Soccernomics
DC
"SOCCERNOMICS - Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why
the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to
Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport" by Simon Kuper
(Amazon.com: http://xrl.us/SoccerN )
...this book brings a fascinating look into the numbers of soccer.
Here a some quotes:
-- "In 2002 everyone knew that the obscure, bucktoothed Brazilian kid
Ronaldinho must have lucked out with the free kick that sailed into
England's net, because he couldn't have been good enough to place it
deliberately." (commenting on the English belief of freakish bad luck
for their national team).
-- "Our finding: England in the 1980-2001 period outscored its
opponents by 0.84 goals per game. That was 0.21 more than we had
predicted based on the country's resources. In short, England was not
underperforming at all. Contrary to popular opinion, it was
over-performing."
-- "Soccer is not only small business business. It's also a bad one.
Anyone who spends any time inside soccer discovers that just as oil is
part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the soccer business."
-- "Provincial towns like Nottingham, Glasgow, Dortmund, Birmingham or
Rotterdam all have won European Cups, while the seven biggest
metropolitan areas in Europe--Istanbul, Paris, Moscow, London, St.
Petersburg, Berlin and Athens--never have. This points to an odd
connection between city size, capital cities and soccer success."
-- "Against all evidence, the stereotype persists that the typical
British fan is a full-on Hornby."
-- "Staging a World Cup won't make you rich, but it does tend to cheer
you up." (commenting on, among other things, the bogus arguments that
staging a large sports event brings significant positive economic
consequences for the host)...
More reviews: http://xrl.us/SNomics