Beautiful Soccer: Creating Passion and Confidence in Young Players by
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.
Chasing the Game : America and the Quest for the World Cup by
A tantalizing account of the triumphs and travails of the U.S. men’s soccer team in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, set within the historical context of American soccer on the global stage The U.S. men’s soccer team was a huge disappointment at the World Cup in 2006, but a newly constituted team exceeded all expectations in June 2009 with their inspired play at the Confederations Cup in South Africa—where they upset the number one team in the world, Spain, and lost late in the championship game to a supremely talented Brazilian squad. Their impressive showing gave fans, including the ever-loyal Sam’s Army, a renewed sense of hope that when the team plays up to its capabilities, the Americans can compete with anyone in the world. In Chasing the Game, Filip Bondy describes the U.S. team’s path to qualifying for this year’s World Cup—to be held on the African continent for the first time ever, in South Africa in June 2010. Bondy also reveals the back-and-forth saga that resulted in the hiring of Bob Bradley as the American coach, and serves up engaging profiles of several core players, including the U.S. national team’s all-time leader in scoring and assists, Landon Donovan, acrobatic goalie Tim Howard, hip-hop devotee and opportunistic goal-scorer Clint “Deuce” Dempsey, up-and-comer Jozy Altidore, and the coach’s son, the reticent yet dependable Michael Bradley. Chasing the Game also recounts the glorious highlights of past World Cup matches, like the U.S. men’s team’s stunning 1–0 victory over England in 1950 and the 2002 team’s advance to the quarterfinals, as well as heartbreaks like the fiasco in 2006, when the U.S. mustered only four shots on goal in three games. Finally, Bondy also traces the origin of soccer and the evolution of the game in the U.S., chronicling how soccer academies like the one in Bradenton, Florida, have impacted the game at both the youth and national levels. It’s all here for the first time in one book—the complete story of American soccer on the global stage.
The complete idiot's guide to soccer by 
The Economics of Football by
This book presents a detailed economic analysis of professional football at club level, using a combination of economic reasoning and statistical and econometric analysis. Most of the original empirical research reported in the book is based on English club football. A wide range of international comparisons help emphasize both the broader relevance as well as the unique characteristics of the English experience. Specific topics include: the links between football clubs' financial strength and competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome; the determinants of professional footballers' compensation; measuring the football manager's contribution to team performance, the determinants of managerial change, and its effects on team performance; patterns of spectator demand for attendance; predicting match results, betting on football, and the market in football clubs' company shares. The book concludes with an extended discussion of the major economic policy issues currently facing football's legislators and administrators worldwide.
The Football Lover's Companion by
When the final whistle blows and you've finished shouting at the ref, relax with this Premiership-level miscellany of quotes, jokes, trivia and enough football inspired fun to have you rolling on the ground—even when you're not faking an injury!
History of the World Cup, 1930-2010 by
There is no sporting event more popular than the World Cup. For one month every four years, hundreds of millions of people around the world turn their attention to the tournament. People call in sick to work, fans pack into bars to watch games or stay home for days at a time glued to their TV sets, and even wars stop. Nothing else seems to matter. In A History of the World Cup: 1930-2010, Clemente Lisi chronicles this international phenomenon, providing vivid accounts of individual games from the tournament's origins in 1930 to modern times. It features a glossary of terms, statistics for each competition, photos, and profiles of the most memorable—and controversial—figures of the sport, including Diego Maradona, Juste Fontaine, Franz Beckenbauer, Mario Kempes, Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, and, of course, Pelé. Though other histories of the World Cup largely ignore the United States' contribution to the competition, this volume highlights the progress of the American teams over the last several decades. Updated with a new chapter on the 2010 World Cup and with profiles of those players who stood out in the latest competition—along with revised statistical information—A History of the World Cup provides a fascinating read for fans of the game.
The Soccer Diaries : An American's Thirty-Year Pursuit of the International Game by
Although soccer had long been the world’s game when Michael J. Agovino first encountered it in 1982, here it was just a poor cousin to American football, to be found on obscure UHF channels and in foreign magazines. But as Agovino himself passionately pursued soccer, Americans got wise and turned it into one of the most popular sports in the country. Agovino’s love affair with soccer is a portrait of the game’s culture and an intimate history of the sport’s coming of age in the United States. Agovino’s quest takes him from the unkempt field in the Bronx where he taught himself to play to some of the sport’s most storied venues and historic matches. With Agovino we travel from school fields to Giants Stadium, then from England to Germany, Italy, and Spain, along the way taking in the final days of the North American Soccer League, the 1994 World Cup, and the birth of Major League Soccer. Offering the perspective of fan, player, and journalist, Agovino chronicles his obsession with the sport and its phenomenal evolution.
Beyond Bend It Like Beckham : The Global Phenomenon of Women's Soccer by
Though it burst into public consciousness only with the 1999 World Cup, women's soccer has been around almost as long as its male counterpart, flourishing in England during and after World War I. From the rise of women's soccer following Title IX legislation in the early seventies to the watershed 1999 World Cup performance that turned the American team into instant celebrities, soccer is now the most popular sport for girls and women, with participation growing exponentially worldwide. Beyond “Bend It Like Beckham” presents the first in-depth global analysis of the women's game—both where it has come from and where it is headed. With commentary from key players, coaches, and administrators, Timothy F. Grainey follows the sport's reach into the unlikeliest places today, even countries where women were banned from playing soccer just a few short years ago.Though women in the United States and Canada still fight for equal treatment and funding, their situations differs markedly from the hostility, abuse, and even outright bans that some women still encounter in trying to pursue an activity they love. Through the prism of soccer, this book explores the struggle for women's rights abroad, in countries as diverse as Sweden, Russia, South Africa, Pakistan, Australia, and Iran.
A Game for Rough Girls? : A History of Women's Football in Britain by
Can we truly call football England's'national'game?How have we arrived at this point of such clear inequality between men's and women's football? Between 1921 and 1972, women were banned from playing in football League grounds in the UK. Yet in 1998 FIFA declared that'the future is feminine'and that football was the fastest growing sport for women globally. The result of several years of original research, the book traces the continuities in women's participation since the beginnings of the game, and highlights the significant moments that have influenced current practice. The text provides: •insight into the communities and individual experiences of players, fans, investors, administrators and coaches•examination of the attitudes and role of national and international associations•analysis of the development of the professional game•comparisons with women's football in mainland Europe, the USA and Africa. A Game for Rough Girls is the first text to properly theorize the development of the game. Examining recreational and elite levels, the author provides a thorough critique, placing women's experience in the context of broader cultural and sports studies debates on social change, gender, power and global economics.
Soccer, Women, Sexual Liberation by
This is the first in-depth global study of women's football across the world. This collection considers women's football, in fifteen countries worldwide, in a global context, and analyzes its progress, challenges and problems it has faced. It shows how women's football has made a significant contribution to the emancipation of women's football in many countries. It also traces the evolution of women's football in face of resistance, rejection and prejudice and describes women footballer's struggle for equal rights in a male dominated football world.
The U.S. Women's Soccer Team : An American Success Story by
Updated through the 2012 Olympics. On a July afternoon in 1999, the proudest moment for U.S. soccer occurred in Pasadena, California. In the presence of more than 90,000 fans and viewed by another 40 million on television, the U.S. women outlasted China to win the World Cup. Although the United States has lagged far behind other countries in the men's game, it has been at the forefront when it comes to women's soccer.In the second edition of The U.S. Women's Soccer Team: An American Success Story, Clemente A. Lisi examines how the sport has gained popularity over the past few decades. While other books have been written about the team during a specific year, such as those focused solely on the World Cup win on U.S. soil, Lisi looks beyond this event, detailing the program's infancy and how it steadily became a model for women's teams around the globe.Beginning with the start of the U.S. program in 1985, Lisi recounts the development of the women's team, highlighted by their two first place finishes in the Women's World Cups (1991 and 1999) and four Olympic women's gold medals (1996, 2004, 2008, and 2012). In addition to chronicling the history of the team as a whole, this book offers mini profiles and photographs of some of the best players over the years, including Julie Foudy, Amy Rodriguez, Hope Solo, and Mia Hamm.
English National Identity and Football Fan Culture Who Are Ya? by
In recent years, scholars have understood the increasing use of the St George's Cross by football fans to be evidence of a rise in a specifically'English'identity. This has emerged as part of a wider'national'response to broader political processes such as devolution and European integration which have fragmented identities within the UK. Using the controversial figurational sociological approach advocated by the twentieth-century theorist Norbert Elias, this book challenges such a view, drawing on ethnographic research amongst fans to explore the precise nature of the relationship between contemporary English national identity and football fan culture. Examining football fans'expressions of Englishness in public houses and online spaces, the author discusses the effects of globalization, European integration and UK devolution on English society, revealing that the use of the St George's Cross does not signal the emergence of a specifically'English'national consciousness, but in fact masks a more complex, multi-layered process of national identity construction. A detailed and grounded study of identity, nationalism and globalization amongst football fans, English National Identity and Football Fan Culture will appeal to scholars and students of politics, sociology and anthropology with interests in ethnography, the sociology of sport, fan cultures, globalization and contemporary national identities.
Football Delirium by
In the tradition of Adam Phillips and Darian Leader, Chris Oakley shines his spotlight on the world of football and with wit and erudition looks at the question of why there is this worldwide preoccupation with football. Does anybody have the answer? This book argues that football offers us the possibility of manageable doses of self-elected madness. A madness that is essential for a sane life. For the paradox is that this very madness is simultaneously therapeutic: football as an insistent provocation, repeatedly re-inaugurating the reverie or drift, disrupted by those moments of the most intense fracture, moments of the autistic stare.
Goal! by
Goal! covers the history of the beautiful game from its origins in English public schools in the early 19th century to its current role as a crucial element of a globalized entertainment industry. The authors explain how football transformed from a sport at elite boarding schools in England to become a pastime popular with the working classes, enabling factories such as the Thames Iron Works and the Woolwich Arsenal to give birth to the teams that would become the Premier League mainstays known as West Ham United and Arsenal. They also explore how the age of amateur soccer ended and, with the advent of professionalism, how football became a sport dominated by big clubs with big money and with an international audience.
Liability of Football Clubs by
The focus of this research is the interaction between the disciplinary regulations of national and international football associations and civil law regarding the liability of clubs for supporters'misconduct. Previous research has been conducted regarding the disciplinary liability of clubs in France, Germany and Switzerland. This research will compile the cases from multiple jurisdictions, adding a conceptual approach by taking the interaction of legal systems as a perspective. It also provides new insights into the position and interaction of private regulations of sports organizations-such as disciplinary liability rules-and their application in civil law. [Subject: Sports Law, Civil Law]
