The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong

Chris Anderson · David Sally

Jul 2013 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

Moneyball meets Freakonomics in this myth-busting guide to understanding—and winning—the most popular sport on the planet.

Innovation is coming to soccer, and at the center of it all are the numbers—a way of thinking about the game that ignores the obvious in favor of how things actually are. In The Numbers Game, Chris Anderson, a former professional goalkeeper turned soccer statistics guru, teams up with behavioral analyst David Sally to uncover the numbers that really matter when it comes to predicting a winner. Investigating basic but profound questions—How valuable are corners? Which goal matters most? Is possession really nine-tenths of the law? How should a player’s value be judged?—they deliver an incisive, revolutionary new way of watching and understanding soccer.

Ratings and reviews

couldn't put it down! (Joke) Haha I Learned a lot about what everyone considers to be the norm in soccer and how it is more than likeley false. corner kicks, possession and amount of shots to name a few. Using data is eye opening. I'm not a person who reads often or can read for very long but as a soccer player and fan I forced myself to read this whenever I had a spare moment.

You'll have a better understanding of the game after you read this book. I enjoyed it. Keep in mind as you read this, soccer analysis is still in its early days.

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.