It's a Numbers Game! Soccer: The Math Behind the Perfect Goal, the Game-Winning Save, and So Much More!

Grab your soccer ball and calculator and get ready to delve into the numbers and math behind the world's most popular sport.

Whether you call it soccer or football, "the beautiful game" wouldn't be the popular game it is without numbers. From the clock counting up the seconds to positioning your feet at the right angle for the perfect dribble, this book reveals the ways digits and math are part of the game. Read about soccer greats from all over the world racking up points, championships, and even Olympic medals. Learn how goalies use geometry to guard the net and check out cool graphics that show the probability that a goalie will be able to stop a penalty kick. Soccer fans everywhere will get a kick out of this number-focused look at the game, jam-packed with sports trivia, awesome photos, and fun activities at the end of every chapter.

JAMES BUCKLEY, JR. is the author of more than 100 books for young readers on basketball, baseball, football, soccer, and more. A former editor at Sports Illustrated and NFL Publishing, he is also the author of the top-selling annual Scholastic Year in Sports. In the non-sports world, he has written a dozen titles in the New York Times best-selling Who Was...? biography series. Buckley lives in Santa Barbara where he runs the Shoreline Publishing Group, a leading producer of nonfiction for kids.