Through stunning infographics and high-quality illustrations, the world of soccer is brought to life. Full of facts and stats, players and personalities, this is the beautiful game as you have never seen it before. Whether it is uncovering the most goals scored in an international tournament, or comparing the left-foot of the world's best players, the intriguing and often surprising truths of soccer are uncovered. From the legend-makers Brazil and their world cup wins, the tallest and shortest players to have graced the game, to pitting the top players against each others, these striking and fun infographics put the game's most intriguing questions to the test. Who has scored more from the penalty spot, Ronaldo or Messi? Which goalie has the safest hands? Who has received the most red cards?

Exploring the role of coaches and parents, this book emphasizes the importance of team identity and a team mindset and presents the necessary foot skills and tactics to help young soccer players both perform better and have more fun. As youth soccer becomes increasingly popular, coaches often gloss over individual improvement in order to win, relying on rigid systems and a few elite players to carry a team. This impairs player development and kills the joy of the game—so how can adults make competitive soccer better for kids? Addressing that very problem, this book outlines basic patterns of play that young players can use to advance the ball and illustrates innovative techniques that will help improve any team. Moreover, this book advocates a soccer culture free from the fear of failure; instead, players, coaches, and parents are encouraged to foster confidence, passion, creativity, and the desire to try and keep trying.

Wherever you are on earth, it's only a matter of time before you come across children playing soccer. Another five minutes and you will probably find yourself having a ball rolled to your feet as an invitation to join in the game. Soccer is a common language and a culture shared: a joy, a passion, an escape, and an affirmation of identity understood and celebrated by children—and their parents—in every country around the globe. For this unique collaborative project, soccer writer Tom Watt talked to the world's top players about growing up and falling in love with the game: Argentina's Lionel Messi and Brazil's Gilberto Silva; England's David James and Scotland's Craig Gordon; Italy's Fabio Cannavaro, Spain's Iker Casillas, and France's Franck RibÉry; South Africa's Benni McCarthy and Nigeria's Nwankwo Kanu; USA's Landon Donovan and Japan's Shunsuke Nakamura; and the world's most famous player, David Beckham. A Beautiful Game tells their stories, in the players' own words—stories of boys who would grow up to be heroes for a new generation of young players and fans. They look back to their childhoods: to their family homes, to their schoolrooms, to the friends they grew up with, and to the places where they first played the game that has made them stars. The players' words are brought to life with over 160 full-color images that offer rare, emotive, and striking insights into childhood all over the world, and celebrate soccer's ability to touch the lives of children—and adults—wherever the beautiful game is played. Five percent of the originating publisher's revenue from sales of the book worldwide will benefit selected UNICEF sports-related projects.

This collection of incisive articles gives a leading team of international philosophers a free kick toward exploring the complex and often hidden contours of the world of soccer. What does it really mean to be a fan (and why should we count Aristotle as one)? Why do great players such as Cristiano Ronaldo count as great artists (up there alongside Picasso, one author argues)? From the ethics of refereeing to the metaphysics of bent (like Beckham) space-time, this book shows soccer fans and philosophy buffs alike new ways to appreciate and understand the world's favorite sport.

The first book to use the world's most popular sport to test economic theories and document novel human behavior A wealth of research in recent decades has seen the economic approach to human behavior extended over many areas previously considered to belong to sociology, political science, law, and other fields. Research has also shown that economics can provide insight into many aspects of sports, including soccer. Beautiful Game Theory is the first book that uses soccer to test economic theories and document novel human behavior. In this brilliant and entertaining book, Ignacio Palacios-Huerta illuminates economics through the world's most popular sport. He offers unique and often startling insights into game theory and microeconomics, covering topics such as mixed strategies, discrimination, incentives, and human preferences. He also looks at finance, experimental economics, behavioral economics, and neuroeconomics. Soccer provides rich data sets and environments that shed light on universal economic principles in interesting and useful ways. Essential reading for students, researchers, and sports enthusiasts, Beautiful Game Theory is the first book to show what soccer can do for economics.

This book explores the role of coaches and parents, emphasizes the importance of team identity and a team mindset, and presents the necessary foot skills to help young soccer players both perform better and have more fun. Moreover, this book advocates a soccer culture free from the fear of failure.

“Beautifully researched and engagingly told, this book captures the bitter conflicts and surprising continuities that marked the emergence of a national style in Brazil as it tells the story of the men and women who, despite their many differences, together created ‘the beautiful game.’”—Roger Kittleson, author of The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil “Compellingly shows how each segment of Brazilian society—players, club owners, and spectators, especially the usually neglected female fans—was touched by the sport that it eventually came to proudly embrace as its own.”—Amy Chazkel, coeditor of The Rio de Janeiro Reader: History, Culture, Politics “Highlights the narrative power of soccer, showing how Brazilians—from elite sportsmen and nationalist intellectuals to common men and women—infused the sport with both personal and national importance.”—Joshua Nadel, author of Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America Although the popular history of Brazilian football narrates a story of progress toward democracy and inclusion, it does not match the actual historical record. Instead, football can be understood as an invention of early twentieth century middle-class and wealthy Brazilians who called themselves “sportsmen” and nationalists, and used the sport as part of their larger campaigns to shape and reshape the nation. In this cross-cutting cultural history, Gregg Bocketti traces the origins of football in Brazil from its elitist, Eurocentric identity as “foot-ball” at the end of the nineteenth century to its subsequent mythologization as the specifically Brazilian “futebol,” o jogo bonito (the beautiful game). Bocketti examines the popular depictions of the sport as having evolved from a white elite pastime to an integral part of Brazil’s national identity known for its passion and creativity, and concludes that these mythologized narratives have obscured many of the complexities and the continuities of the history of football and of Brazil. Mining a rich trove of sources, including contemporary sports journalism, archives of Brazilian soccer clubs, and British ministry records, and looking in detail at soccer’s effect on all parts of Brazilian society, Bocketti shows how important the sport is to an understanding of Brazilian nationalism and nation building in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.