Interesting for stats geeks!

I found this mostly interesting as a big football fan, as well as a non-academic interest in stats, trends and analysing data!

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Brilliant

I loved all the interesting statistics throughout, the only thing that annoyed me was the way they kept on saying that a win percentage was .72% etc..... when it was actually 72%

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Misleading in places!

This was an interesting although subjective book. The narrative was engrossing but not all the 'facts' were presented in a balanced way, for example Spain during the Franco years is described as isolationist and this is seen as a negative factor in football evolution yet the amazing Real Madrid side of the late fifties and early sixties didn't get a mention. I also doubt that having fewer English players in the Premier league would improve the situation of Englands poor record in world football since Spain use mainly spanish-based players in their world conquering team. Overall it was an interesting book but not really one I would pay attention to.

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Great book

I found it a great history of Argentina book. I liked the narrator but he sounded like he was having an asthma attack in the long sentences. I think wilson should've read the historical Argentinian pieces, and Charlie Ashtma should've read the Messi and Maradona bits.

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Better off reading it

This book is brilliant, but the problem is it has a lot of tables that convert horribly to audio.

There is one table that takes about 6 minutes to read out.

Given the amount of data involved in the book I think you are much better off reading it than listening to it.

That said it's incredibly interesting.

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5 people found this helpful

One for Football Fans

great listening and performance from Colin Mace very interesting book. need updating to the latest edition.

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If you follow football, you'll love this

This is a terrific analysis of football making some serious and clever points in a very likeable dry-witted style. The great thing about it as an audiobook is that it will bear several listens to take in the many salient points. Thoroughly recommended.

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Interesting but probably better in print

Contains some interesting insights, though some already feel a bit outdated as was written when capello was in charge of England. Most annoyingly the book contains multiple statistical tables read out line by line - this can take many minutes each time, is tedious and adds no value really. Would be much better to have reference pdf and just summarise in the voiceover.

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2 people found this helpful

Horrendously unsuited to be an audio book

I felt as thoughi was just listening to reams of numbers for vast large parts.

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1 person found this helpful

You don't have to be a footie fan to enjoy this

A very entertaining and insightful exposition of the economic dynamics of football. Not being a big footie fan, on the strength of this listen I was able to hold my own with great comments that generated fierce debate as we watched the debacle that was England's world cup attempt. I also noticed that the author was called upon to comment on several post match discussions I heard on the radio, so he's clearly established himself as a major pundit. As per my title - this is good for fans and non-fans alike and will give a brilliant understanding of where we fit into the football world ... and why we lose!

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