The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Football is Wrong - Softcover

Chris Anderson; David Sally

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0670922242 ISBN 13: 9780670922246

Publisher: Viking, 2013

Synopsis

A must-read . . . Chris Anderson and David Sally have the ability to see football in a way few have before them. Be warned: The Numbers Game will change the way you think about your favourite team or player, and change the way you watch the beautiful game. (Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A's, the subject of Moneyball)

A fascinating and stylish investigation into a rapidly developing way of understanding football (Jonathan Wilson, author of Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics)

Whether you are a traditionalist or a numbers nut you can enjoy this book. It's thorough, accessible, and devoid of the absolute truths so many on both sides of the debate peddle. (Gabriele Marcotti, football broadcaster and author)

It is the book that could change the game forever (Times)

You need to like football. Millions of people do. And they should rush to read this book immediately. The game they love will take on new depth, colour and subtlety (Ed Smith The Times)

Does the impossible of making the beautiful game even more beautiful (Malcolm Gladwell)
About the Author

About this title

About the Author

Chris Anderson is a pioneer of soccer analytics and a professor at London School of Economics in the U.K. and Cornell University in the U.S.

David Sally is a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Review

"The Numbers Game does the impossible of making the beautiful game even more beautiful." - Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink

“Chris Anderson and David Sally have the ability to see football in a way few have before them. Be warned: The Numbers Game will change the way you think about your favorite team or player, and the way you watch the beautiful game.” – Billy Beane, Manager of the Oakland A’s and subject of Moneyball
 
"I learned a lot, and it's hard not to applaud a project that is bent on the disenchantment of football's internal conversations and archaic practices, while simultaneously acknowledging an ineradicable core of the unpredictable and random at its heart." - David Goldblatt, author of The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Soccer for the Times Literary Supplement

“...North American soccer fans would do very well to pick up this book.  It will not only help them understand the game better, but it will also stimulate new ways to analyze and think about the game.”  – Forbes
  
“[This] is the book that could change the game forever.” – The Times (London)
   
“By any standards, this is a landmark book, scrupulously researched and bound to be influential.” – Booklist (starred review)

“Witty and thoughtful...should appeal not just to soccer fans, but to readers of Malcolm Gladwell and Freakonomics.” – Kirkus Reviews

"Their rather innovative and revolutionary way of looking at the game makes for fascinating reading." - The Library Journal

“A highly original contribution to our understanding of what we are seeing at a match, their book is unbeatable” – The Independent on Sunday
 
“Pundits, armchair fans and professionals, will find that several of their long-cherished truisms are not true at all.” – The Guardian
 
“Superb” – GQ

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670922242
• ISBN 13: 9780670922246
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384