Popular Soccer Books

The Men in Blazers are two English-born, soccer-obsessed broadcasters who have savored the dizzying growth of the game along with millions of Americans. Now they immerse fans and novices alike in the history and culture of the world’s game with Encyclopedia Blazertannica. This indispensable tome gives readers a front-row seat to all the action of football madness.

They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin’ Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the Queen, football clubs (especially Manchester United), and themselves. Their dislike encompasses the rest of the known universe, and England’s soccer thugs express it in ways that range from mere vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. Bill Buford enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure with the social imagination of a George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of a Hunter Thompson.

Nick Hornby has been a football fan since the moment he was conceived. Call it predestiny. Or call it preschool. Fever Pitch is his tribute to a lifelong obsession. Part autobiography, part comedy, part incisive analysis of insanity, Hornby’s award-winning memoir captures the fever pitch of fandom — its agony and ecstasy, its community, and its defining role in thousands of young men’s coming-of-age stories. Fever Pitch is one for the home team. But above all, it is one for everyone who knows what it really means to have a losing season.

Ruud Gullit knows better than anyone else that to understand soccer you have to understand strategy. Over the course of his career, he worked his way from the Dutch junior leagues all the way to the legendary AC Milan, eventually retiring from the field to be a trainer, then a manager, and finally a commentator. Each step came with its own lessons and its own unique perspective on the game. Now, having looked at soccer through every lens possible, Gullit shares his perspective.

“Golazo!” means “amazing goal!” And the word perfectly captures the unique, exuberant, all-encompassing, passionate role that soccer plays in Latin America. Andreas Campomar offers readers the definitive history of Latin American soccer from the early, deadly Mesoamerican ballgames to the multi-billion dollar international business it is today. Golazo! explores the intersection of soccer, politics, economics, high and low culture, and how passion for a game captured a continent.

Georgia Cloepfil played professional soccer for six years, on six teams, in six countries. In those years, the sport became more than a game — it was an immersive yet transient way of life. In South Korea, she lived and practiced in an isolated island compound next to an airport. The Striker and the Clock is a beautiful examination of the joy and pain of serious athletics. It’s also an eye-opening look at the still-developing world of professional women’s soccer. Written in 90 short passages — reflecting the 90 inexorably passing minutes of a soccer match — the book is a love letter to a maddening sport and a reflection on the way it has shaped a life.

After the phenomenal success of Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby tried to avoid writing about soccer, for fear that he’d be writing about it forever. But occasionally over the years, he’s found it impossible to turn down a particularly enticing assignment or, in the case of the 2012-13 Premier League, just unable to resist writing about that most spectacular of seasons. Fortunately for those who love great writing about soccer, all these fugitive pieces are collected in Fan Mail.

Argentine journalist Leonardo Faccio describes how Lionel Messi, as a talented youth player in Buenos Aires, left his home for Spain in search of the medical help his family could not afford to treat his rare hormone deficiency. Small in stature, but possessing tremendous natural gifts, Messi developed into a star at Barcelona’s famed Masia soccer school. In-depth and intimate, soccer fans who enjoy watching Messi come alive on the field will delight as he comes alive on the page.

Every week, year-round, legions of devoted soccer fans across the country rise at the crack of dawn or quietly sneak out of work to watch their favorite teams play across the pond — complete with a soundtrack of two cheeky Englishmen spouting a stream of trite phrases and curious words that make maddeningly little sense. In Football Clichés, London-based soccer writer Adam Hurrey amusingly translates the idioms of the sport, from the quaint to the ridiculous. Perfect for the die-hard or fair-weather fan, Football Clichés celebrates the world of soccer in all its glory.

After covering the American sports scene for fifteen years, Chuck Culpepper suffered from a profound case of Common Sportswriter Malaise. He was fed up with self-righteous proclamations, steroid scandals, and the deluge of in-your-face PR that saturated the NFL, the NBA, and MLB. Then in 2006, he moved to London and discovered a new and baffling world — the renowned Premiership soccer league. Culpepper pledged his loyalty to Portsmouth, a gutsy, small-market team at the bottom of the standings. Chuck Culpepper brings penetrating insight to the vibrant landscape of English soccer.

The book that rocked the sports world with its explosive revelations of a bitter feud between David Beckham and American star Landon Donovan — and how they overcame their differences to lead the L.A. Galaxy to the championship final, now updated with a new Afterword.

In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of soccer’s rise from chaotic folk ritual to the world’s most popular sport. Already celebrated internationally, The Ball Is Round illuminates soccer’s role in the political and social histories of modern societies, but never loses sight of the beauty, joy, and excitement of the game itself.

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.

The world’s most popular sport goes by many names — soccer, football, the beautiful game — but fans have always agreed on one thing: The greatest player of all time was Pelé. Before Messi, before Ronaldo, before Beckham, Pelé had a stunning 20-year career, where he was heralded as an international treasure. This is Pelé’s legacy, his way of passing on everything he’s learned and inspiring a new generation. In Why Soccer Matters, Pelé details his ambitious goals for the future of the sport and, by extension, the world.

Growing up in Scotland, Alan Black learned that soccer was no mere game; it was a matter of life or death. In this harshly hilarious tale, Black, a Glasglow transplant living in suburban California, coaches the Dragons, a peewee team that proves an embarrassment to his beloved sport. Kick the Balls is a sidesplitting memoir of grass stains and free kicks, a no-holds-barred account of one man’s bafflement by an alien culture, and a stinging satire of American parenthood. Alan Black’s voice – howling from the sidelines – is that rare thing: a fresh, original, winning comic talent.

In 2015, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team won its first FIFA championship in 16 years, culminating in an epic final game that electrified soccer fans around the world. It featured a gutsy, brilliant performance by team captain and midfielder Carli Lloyd, who made history that day, scoring a hat trick — three goals in one game — during the first 16 minutes. This candid reflection on a remarkable turnaround will take listeners inside the women’s national team and inside the head of an athlete who willed herself to perform at the highest levels of competition.

Clarkston, Georgia, was a typical Southern town until it was designated a refugee settlement center in the 1990s, becoming the first American home for scores of families in flight from the world’s war zones — from Liberia and Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan. The town also became home to Luma Mufleh, an American-educated Jordanian woman who founded a youth soccer team to unify Clarkston’s refugee children and keep them off the streets. These kids named themselves the Fugees. This fast-paced chronicle of a single season is a complex and inspiring tale of a small town becoming a global community — and an account of the ingenious and complicated ways we create a home in a changing world.

Diego Armando Maradona’s death on November 25, 2020, at the age of 60, was a death that had been foretold many times. Even when he was alive accounts of his life had a tragic register, of the kid from the slums whose magical talent on the soccer field was squandered by drug addiction.  Maradona: The Last Interview is a fitting tribute to a complicated and brilliant soccer player who moved the world and changed the game of soccer forever.