The Numbers Game

Oct 21, 2024 11:40 PM

Author:Chris Anderson,David Sally

The Numbers Game

Discover football's astonishing hidden rules in The Numbers Game by Chris Anderson and David Sally

*Fully updated with a new World Cup chapter*

Football has always been a numbers game: 4-4-2, the big number 9 and 3 points for a win. But what if up until now we've been focusing on the wrong numbers? What if the numbers that really matter, the ones that hold the key to winning matches, are actually 2.66, 53.4, 50/50, and 0 > 1? What if managers only make a 15% difference? What if Chelsea should have bought Darren Bent?

In this incisive, myth-busting book, Chris Anderson, former goalkeeper turned football statistics guru, and David Sally, former baseball pitcher turned behavioural economist, show that every shred of knowledge we can gather can help us to love football and understand it even more. You'll discover why stopping a goal is more valuable than scoring one, why corners should be taken short, and why it is better to improve your worst player than to buy a superstar.

You'll never play, or watch, a game of football in quite the same way again.

The Numbers Game is essential reading for football fans everywhere and will also appeal to readers who loved Moneyball and Freakonomics.

Reviews

Does the impossible of making the beautiful game even more beautiful

—— Malcolm Gladwell

A must-read . . . Chris Anderson and David Sally have the ability to see football in a way few have before them. Be warned: The Numbers Game will change the way you think about your favourite team or player, and change the way you watch the beautiful game.

—— Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A's, the subject of Moneyball

A fascinating and stylish investigation into a rapidly developing way of understanding football

—— Jonathan Wilson, author of Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics

Whether you are a traditionalist or a numbers nut you can enjoy this book. It's thorough, accessible, and devoid of the absolute truths so many on both sides of the debate peddle.

—— Gabriele Marcotti, football broadcaster and author

It is the book that could change the game forever

—— Times

You need to like football. Millions of people do. And they should rush to read this book immediately. The game they love will take on new depth, colour and subtlety

—— Ed Smith , The Times

This is a worthy successor to Ned Boulting's other books; entertaining, informative, and often funny

—— Richard Peploe , Road

Dispatches from the 101st Tour de France, 101 Damnations is a chance to relive the 2014 race, stage for stage, fall after fall, tantrum by tantrum; just the good bits mind, without all the aerial shots of castles

—— Cycling Weekly

Part biography and part internal monologue, it is genuinely hilarious – and does not lack the odd piercing insight

—— John Bew , New Statesman

A supreme example of how sportswriting can capture the cultural and the social at its best without any negative impact on its ability to reach and engage with a mass audience

—— Mark Perryman , Left Futures

One of the more entertaining football tomes to be published in recent times.

—— Barry Glendenning , Guardian

A funny and poignant tale for anyone who's ever dreamt of quitting their day job to embark on an adventure

—— Jude Brosnan , Wanderlust Travel Magazine

A salient overview of the past quarter-century

—— Times Literary Supplement

The deserving winner of this year's William Hill Sports Book of the Year award

—— Chris Maume , Independent

This is a breakthrough book by one of the leading young lights of Australian writing

—— Cath Turner , Nudge

Despite it being an almost impossible subject to write about, Krien has produced a brilliant, disarming, thought-provoking book

—— Malachy Clerkin , Irish Times

A thought-provoking book that every aspiring male footballer should be made to read…as part of their apprenticeship

—— Susan Egelstaff , Herald

A worthy, if unexpected, winner

—— Simon Redfern , Independent On Sunday

A depressing but essential read

—— Sharon Wheeler , Times Higher Education

an intelligent and unsettling exploration of how sport’s macho culture and exclusion of women enable abuse

—— David Evans, Four Stars , Independent on Sunday

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