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

What Michael Lewis did for baseball with his now-classic 2003 book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Anderson (systems manager, London Sch. of Economics & Political Science) and Sally (business administration, Tuck Sch. of Business, Dartmouth Coll.) attempt in this lively study of the application of analytics in soccer—and they do it very well. Tracing the use of numbers, applied to soccer, the authors draw surprising and valid conclusions about the world's most popular game. The study of data in soccer—and in most sports—is a growing business, turning games of tradition into situational contests best managed by examining numbers to create a winning solution. For Anderson and Sally, soccer is not a game of possession but a game of managing turnovers. Their rather innovative and revolutionary way of looking at the game makes for fascinating reading at times amid a plethora of numbers and analysis. In the tradition of Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski's Soccernomics, Anderson and Sally contribute an admirable addition to the emerging literature of the business and analytics of sports.