The future of football is now. Football's data revolution has only just begun. The arrival of advanced metrics and detailed analysis is already reshaping the modern game. We can now fully assess player performance, analyse the role of luck and measure what really leads to victory. There is no turning back. Now the race is on between football's wealthiest clubs and a group of outsiders, nerds and rule-breakers, who are turning the game on its head with their staggering innovations. Winning is no longer just about what happens out on the pitch, it's now a battle taking place in boardrooms and on screens across international borders with the world's brightest minds driving for an edge over their fiercest rivals. Christoph Biermann has moved in the midst of these disruptive upheavals, talking to scientists, coaches, managers, scouts and psychologists in the world's major clubs, traveling across Europe and the US and revealing the hidden - and often jaw-dropping - truths behind the beautiful game. 'A book full of exciting ideas and inside views on modern football. The most exciting book in an exciting time for football.' Thomas Hitzlsperger

Well written and thoughtful. Takes us on a tour of some of Europe's most innovative football thinkers - Financial Times The future of football is now. Football's data revolution has only just begun. The arrival of advanced metrics and detailed analysis is already reshaping the modern game. We can now fully assess player performance, analyse the role of luck and measure what really leads to victory. There is no turning back. Now the race is on between football's wealthiest clubs and a group of outsiders, nerds and rule-breakers, who are turning the game on its head with their staggering innovations. Winning is no longer just about what happens out on the pitch, it's now a battle taking place in boardrooms and on screens across international borders with the world's brightest minds driving for an edge over their fiercest rivals. Christoph Biermann has moved in the midst of these disruptive upheavals, talking to scientists, coaches, managers, scouts and psychologists in the world's major clubs, traveling across Europe and the US and revealing the hidden - and often jaw-dropping - truths behind the beautiful game. 'A book full of exciting ideas and inside views on modern football. The most exciting book in an exciting time for football.' Thomas Hitzlsperger

The Victorian Football Miscellany is a quirky and fascinating collection of trivia, facts and anecdotes from football’s earliest years. Delve into an absorbing world of ox-bladder balls, baggy-kneed knickerbockers and outstanding moustaches, and read remarkable tales of the first ever cup final, the invention of the shinpad, the evolution of dribbling, the first own goal and a seemingly-invincible penalty-taking elephant. Other entries cover the foundation of the Football Association, the development of the Laws of the Game and the origins of football’s most popular clubs. Packed with stories, profiles and lists, this is an indispensable guide to the colourful and unusual world of 19th century football.

'Probably the biggest story in football of the last decade ... Reads like a Cold War thriller.' - Best Football Books of 2019, FourFourTwo *** One anonymous football fan. 18.6 million confidential documents. This is the explosive story of the biggest leak in sporting history - and the shady underworld of modern football. In 2016, a whistle-blower known only as 'John' started to leak a treasure trove of top-secret files to German newspaper Der Spiegel. These documents reveal the clandestine dealings of clubs, players and agents at the highest echelons of international football. And the story they tell is astonishing. From the eye-popping details of player transfers, including Neymar Jr, Pogba and Coutinho, to the loopholes and opaque tax structures that ensure maximum earnings for players and agents alike, this is a tale rife with rapacious greed and questionable deals. At the same time, it is the gripping story of a fan who wanted to free football from its corrupt overlords - and now finds himself on the run.

TRACING FOOTBALL’S FAMILY TREE Week in, week out, hundreds of thousands of people enthusiastically risk life, limb and dignity just to play some kind of football; blissfully unaware that they’re playing a game that’s at least as old as the Pyramids and Stonehenge. Graeme Dobson takes the reader on a romp through 5,000 years of extraordinary history as he traces the family tree of all the modern football codes. He identifies a startling array of ancestors, from English school boys all the way back, through Vikings, Greeks and a host of other players, to an ancient Chinese warlord. Along the way he introduces huge professional football leagues, complete with female players and fan clubs that existed 1,000 years ago. Like in any family tree, there are bizarre black sheep and myths to investigate—like, ‘were the first games played with the heads of executed criminals?’ ‘Was soccer invented by the English?’ ‘Did rugby originate when Web Ellis picked the ball up and ran with it during a soccer match?’ ‘Which came first—Australian or Gaelic football?’ and ‘Could a mob of Kiwis really be responsible for rugby league in Australia?’ The answers are both intriguing and unexpected.

The contributors to this volume examine the aspects of the cultural associations, symbolic interpretations and emotional significance of the idea of empire and, to some extent, with the post-imperial consequences. Collectively and cumulatively, their view is that sport was an important instrument of imperial cultural association and subsequent cultural change, promoting at various times and in various places imperial unity, national identity, social reform, recreational development and post-imperial goodwill.

IN THEIR DAY THEY WERE BIGGER THAN BECKHAM. THEY WERE THE WORKING CLASS FACTORY GIRLS WHO PLAYED IN FRONT OF VAST CROWDS THROUGHT BRITAIN AND BECAME CELEBRITIES ACROSS THE WORLD. THEY THREATENED THE ENTIRE MALE-DOMINATED BASTION OF 20TH CENTURY FOOTBALL. SO THE FA PLOTTED TO SHUT THEM DOWN.Boxing Day 1920, and 53,000 men, women and children pack inside Goodison Park. The extraordinary crowds have come to watch two rivals play a match for charity. But this is no ordinary charity fixture. Eleven of the players are international celebrities and their team is the biggest draw in British - and world - football. Yet they are all full-time factory workers - and they are women. They are the ladies of Dick Kerr electrical works. And the male football establishment is terrified by them.With the men away fighting from 1914-1918, most of the workers in the factories of northern England were women. And many factories had a ladies' football team. In December 1917, the team from Dick Kerr factory challenged the ladies of the nearby Arundel Coulthard Foundry to a charity match. It was the first of 828 games for Dick Kerr Ladies as over the decades they scored more than 3,500 goals and raised the equivalent of ?1million for an array of charities.By 1920, ladies' football was a major spectator sport. But away from the cheering terraces the bastions of professional men's football viewed the mass popularity of women's soccer with increasing alarm. On 5 December 1921 the Football Association met in London. After a brief debate behind closed doors it unanimously passed an urgent resolution: women's football was banned from all professional grounds.Dick Kerr Ladies did not give in, playing their matches on parkland with thousands of spectators turning up to watch. But constant pressure from the FA meant that one by one, teams began to fold. It would take until 1971 for the FA to lift its ban. Today, women's football has once again claimed a place in the global game. But it came too late for the pioneers of the sport: Preston Ladies - nee Dick Kerr Ladies - played their last match in 1969.Girls With Balls tells the extraordinary story of the time when women ruled the football world. With recollections from the last remaining member of the team from Dick Kerr's glory years and a treasure trove of contemporary photographs, this is the missing chapter in the history of football - its last great secret. It is a story of men with power, wealth and a fiefdom to protect. But above all, it is a story of girls with balls.