If she hadn’t just left Connecticut to move across the country, she would have been named seventh-grade captain on her school soccer team. But now that Devin is starting seventh grade in Kentville, California, all bets are off. After all, some of the best players on the US national team come from California. She’s sure to have stiff competition. Or so she thinks. When Devin shows up for tryouts, she discovers that the Kentville Kangaroos—otherwise known as the Kicks—are an absolute mess. Their coach couldn’t care less whether the girls win or lose. And Devin is easily one of the most talented players. The good news is, Devin quickly makes friends with funny, outgoing Jessi; shy but sweet Zoe; and klutzy Emma. Can Devin and her newfound friends pull together and save the team from itself?

    Born in Rosario in Argentina in 1987, he began playing football at a very young age, and it wasn't long before his skill and potential was noticed in Europe by Barcelona. He debuted in the 2004-5 season, breaking FC Barcelona's team record for youngest footballer to score a league goal, and being part of the outstanding team that won La Liga that year. His breakthrough season was 2006-7, when he became a first team regular, and in 2008-9 he scored 38 goals to play an integral part in the team's triple-winning success. He surpassed this achievement in 2009-10 with 47 goals in all competitions, and again in 2010-11 with 53 goals.Since Pep Guardiola took over as manager of Barcelona in 2008, Messi has become Barcelona's all-time top scorer in all official club competitions - at the age of 25. He scored an astonishing 91 goals in the calendar year 2012 alone. He won the FIFA World Player of the Year Award in 2009, and won the inaugural FIFA BALLON D'OR in 2010 and again in 2011 and 2012. He has also excelled on the international stage, playing for his national team. The diminutive Argentinian plays with a smile on his face at the most successful club in European football. He has even been praised by Maradona as his 'successor'. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest players of all time, possibly even the greatest. Guillem Balague's perceptive and compelling book goes to the heart of the mystery - and genius - that is Messi.

    Unfortunately, 70% of kids drop out of organized athletics by the age of 13. Most of these children quit because our youth sports culture has taken the ‘play’ out of ‘play ball.’ A shift in values, the rise of expensive youth sports models, and the myth of abundant athletic scholarships has led parents and coaches to focus on wins instead of enjoyment, and trophies at the expense of development. As a result, every day increasing numbers of children quit playing sports that are no longer enjoyable. Conventional wisdom is wrong. In Changing the Game, John O’Sullivan draws upon three decades of high level playing and coaching experience to take us behind the scenes of competitive youth sports, and demonstrates how they have changed from being a fun pastime to an ultra competitive, adult centered enterprise that is failing our children. He then teaches parents that the secret to raising happy, high performing children begins by helping them attain a positive mindset, and an enjoyable youth sports environment. By following seven actionable principles of high performance, parents can give their children a competitive edge, while at the same time making youth sports a positive experience for their family, their community, and their country. “The romance is gone, the fun has disappeared, and children no longer simply ‘play’ sports,” says O’Sullivan. Changing the Game is a call to action to reverse this trend. It will change how you think about youth sports. It will teach you the secrets of high performance. It will help your children to perform better. And it will put the “play” back in “play ball” for all of our young athletes. Are you ready to take action? Are you ready to change the game?

    But what Adrian Hanauer, Paul Allen, Drew Carey, and Joe Roth did when they started the Seattle Sounders FC was no joke. They meticulously planned the launch of the Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise with an eye toward some lofty goals. Then they stood back in amazement as they rocketed far beyond those goals buoyed by a team that ignored its “expansion” label and a fan base that wildly embraced them. Through interviews with key executives, athletes and fans, author Mike Gastineau tells the story leading up to the launch of Sounders FC, the MLS expansion franchise whose seemingly overnight success has captured the attention of the Seattle sports community, sports and entertainment executives, soccer followers across the country and the national news media. In Sounders FC Authentic Masterpiece, readers will learn: * How a money-losing soccer club rocketed from the ranks of the minor leagues to Major League Soccer drawing sell-outs and regularly topping 50,000 fans per match. * The unique relationships between the eclectic group of seasoned sports executives, Hollywood celebrities and bar room soccer fans who came together to build a sports culture that validated Major League Soccer in Seattle and across the country. * The personalities of the players and coaches who took different paths to the team and turned their diversity into a winning team starting on opening night. Gastineau communicates to readers the entire history of events that led to the Sounders FC launch beginning with the role soccer fans played in securing a professional football stadium for the Seattle Seahawks. Also emphasized in the book are the soccer fans, bar owners and soccer subculture that existed in Seattle and was waiting to be acknowledge by mainstream professional sports leaders and media. The book also details how that soccer subculture directly impacted one of the biggest deals in MLS history, the signing of superstar Clint Dempsey in 2013. This is a story of sports, business, culture, timing, and luck. It demonstrates how powerful business people were able to check their egos and embrace their customers all for the sake of the fans, the city, and a soccer culture desperate to embrace a sports team that treated them with respect.

    No other was so emblematic of the era during which he flourished. And no other will ever be as memorable as George Best. On the field Best's skills were sublime and almost other-worldly. Off it, he had a magnetic appeal. He was treated like a pop icon and a pin-up; a fashion-model and a sex-symbol. Every man envied him and every woman adored him. To mark the 50th anniversary of his debut for Manchester United, Duncan Hamilton examines Best's crowded life and premature death. But most importantly, Hamilton presents Best at his glorious peak - the precocious goals, the labyrinthine runs, the poise and balletic balance and the body swerves. This is George Best: footballing immortal.

    At Euro 2012 they became the first team to win three consecutive tournament titles.Graham Hunter was inside the dressing room as the players celebrated after the finals of the World Cup and Euro 2012. His access-all-areas pass at all three tournaments has resulted in remarkable eyewitness accounts and new interviews with star players and the men behind the scenes. Across every day of La Roja’s treble, the author takes you on to the training ground; on the team bus; into the canteen; inside the hotels and on to the pitch.You’ll hear the team talks that inspired Spain to victory plus the inside stories from Fernando Torres, Xavi, Iker Casillas, David Villa, Cesc Fàbregas, Andrés Iniesta, Gerard Piqué and the others behind an unprecedented era.

    Jonathan Wilson has established himself as one of the sport's pre-eminent writers, focusing on the tactics (with the award-winning Inverting the Pyramid) and how events on the pitch have shaped football history (The Anatomy of England). His new book is a compellingly forensic analysis of ten key Liverpool matches that have shaped the club's fortunes for more than a century - from the long-lost triumphs of manager Tom Watson, who arrived in 1896, to the 1977 European Cup triumph over Borussia Mönchengladbach, to the astonishing Champions League Final comeback against AC Milan, 'The Miracle of Istanbul', in 2005. Legendary players and managers of the stature of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley and Kenny Dalglish populate these pages, which highlight the genius and the flaws of individuals by examining them in practice.Certain games lie on the fault-lines of history. Perhaps they mark the end of one era or the beginning of another. Perhaps they encapsulate a summation of a manager's reign. Or perhaps they mark a crossroads, moments at which football looked one way, and then went the other. But this is not a virtual history of Liverpool FC. Jonathan Wilson's prime purpose is not to speculate on what might have been. Rather it will try to determine why what was, was. No game is won or lost, after all, in a single moment but by a million little things.The Anatomy of Liverpool tells the story of a great club through a detailed examination of ten key matches looking, as a football history must, first and foremost at the football.

    For the first time, the Celtic legend speaks candidly about his time as right-hand man to Jock Stein and how together they ruled Scottish football and conquered Europe with the Lisbon Lions. We learn how the Irishman shaped Celtic's glory era of the 1960s and 70s by signing not only the majority of the Lions, but also players such as Kenny Dalglish, Danny McGrain, Lou Macari, George Connelly, Davie Hay, Pat Bonner and Paul McStay. Fallon also reflects on his stellar playing career including the 7-1 League Cup final win over Rangers in 1957, the lean years of the early 1960s and the uneasy final stages of his and Stein's tenure at Celtic. His own, oft-underestimated role is illuminated by revealing interviews with the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Kenny Dalglish, current Celtic boss Neil Lennon, chief executive Peter Lawwell, Stein's son, George, Sean's family and former colleagues.

    The resulting interviews, set against the historical backdrop of both the club and the city, provide a vivid portrait of life at Liverpool during an era when the club's unparalleled on-pitch success often went hand in hand with a boozy social scene fraught with rows, fights, and wind-ups. Former Liverpool players John Barnes, Bruce Grobbelaar, Howard Gayle, Michael Robinson, John Wark, Kevin Sheedy, Nigel Spackman, Steve Staunton, David Hodgson, and Craig Johnston, as well as first-team coach Ronnie Moran, all candidly recollect their memories of this exciting time in Liverpool Football Club's history.

    Impossible to perfect, it requires a broad knowledge of many performance areas including technique, tactics, psychology and the social aspects of human development. The first two components are covered in detail in many texts - but Soccer Brain uniquely offers a comprehensive guide to developing the latter two - player mindsets and winning teams.The environment that a coach creates, and the relationships formed with players, is the bedrock of performance and achievement. Coaches who are able to deliver students of the game, and who are able to help players execute skills and tactics under pressure are the future leaders of the world's most loved sport.Soccer Brain teaches coaches to train players to compete with confidence, with commitment, with intelligence, and as part of a team. The positive messages from each chapter of Soccer Brain help coaches to develop players through patience, repetition, reinforcement, re-appraisal and high value relationships.Soccer Brain is for the no limits coach. It's for the coach who is passionate about developing players and building a winning team. This is not a traditional soccer coaching book filled with drills or tactics or playing patterns. This book is about getting the very best from you, the coach, and helping you develop a coaching culture of excellence and world class football mindsets. This book is for Soccer Coaches of all levels and experience.Written by Dan Abrahams, the best-selling author of "Soccer Tough," it aims to show coaches how their approach to coaching is as much about their relationships with players and the coaching environment as it is about tactics, fitness or strength. By utilising the information in this book - coaches will be able to create an optimum coaching world that creates confident, committed, and mentally strong players. More book details are available on the Bennion Kearny website.

    Bloody hell.'The longest serving and most successful manager in British football history shocked the world by finally retiring in May 2013 and instantly created more column inches and twitter mentions that the death of Margaret Thatcher. And he wasn’t just the greatest, but also one of the most outspoken, engaging and witty voices from the game, as this book proves. Here is the history of his supreme verbal sparring during his years at Manchester United - the man in his own words (with a few additional thoughts from those who knew him best and crossed swords with him most).'There's nothing wrong with losing your temper once in a while if it's for the right reasons''If he was an inch taller he’d be the best centre-half in Britain. His father is 6ft 2in – I’d check the milkman'On Gary Neville'He could start a row in an empty house'On Denis Wise'The list of gentle, naturally retiring men who have been successful in their attempts at running clubs isn't a long one, is it?

    Yet few are aware of the remarkable story that led him to the US Midwest. Compared to Denmarks greatest goalkeeper, Peter Schmeichel, Nielsen was scouted by a host of leading European clubs. When he should have been building his career, he was instead developing a ferocious gambling habit. Nicknamed Casino Jimmy, Nielsen continued to gamble until his losses finally caught up to him. Nielsen gradually pieced his life back together; however, his footballing career remained unfulfilled. Were it not for a call from Kansas City, that might have been the end of the story. The warmth of the Midwest, the passion of Sporting Kansas Citys fans, and the standard of US soccer have given Nielsen a new lease on life. He wants to share his story with fans who have taken him into their hearts and who have made him feel that he is, at last, at home in blue.

    Things just get better when she is commissioned to redesign Hill House, a coveted property recently purchased by a mysterious buyer.Then she literally crashes into Caetano ‘Kay’ Oyeniran, her football hero and long-time celebrity crush, denting his brand new car and her ego in the process. Kay, who has returned to Nigeria to recover from a knee injury, just happens to be the new owner of Hill House.Complications arise as Tari is torn between her existing relationship and growing attraction to Kay, with her faith and principles stuck in the middle.

    Authors Stephen Shea, Ph.D. (Professor of Mathematics) and Christopher Baker (Software Engineer) utilize their unique skill-set to introduce original metrics for analyzing player performance, team style and team construction in the NBA. While demonstrating an awareness of the industry's best ideas, the authors present original, objective and efficient strategies for understanding how teams win. New player performance statistics include Offensive Efficiency (OE), Efficient Offensive Production (EOP), Defensive Stops Gained (DSG), and Approximate Value (AV). OE reflects a player's ability to make the most fundamental offensive decisions. EOP adjusts a player's points and assists based on his efficiency. DSG gives a complete measure of a player's defensive contributions, without relying on individual player statistics like blocks and steals. AV is a measure of total player performance that rivals any publicly available statistic. Basketball Analytics introduces groundbreaking metrics on player involvement in the offense. Point, Rebound and Assist Balance aggregate player usage in these critical statistics. New studies on the NBA show whether teams should strive for balance or unbalance. An NBA draft pick value study determines the average value of each pick and the likelihood of landing a star or role player with each draft position. The results of this study are used to discuss topics including the biggest draft blunders and steals, the draft success of each NBA team, and the quality of each draft class dating back to 1977. This valuable understanding of the NBA Draft creates a foundation for discussing various approaches to team development and construction. Additionally, the authors discuss redefining the positions on the court, unpredictability in the game, data visualization, and applications of spatial tracking technology. There are many intensely debated questions surrounding the NBA today. Who are the most valuable players, and how do they compare to past greats? Which players have the greatest impact on their team's defense? Should Kobe Bryant be concerned with getting his teammates involved in the offense? How do offenses differ in the clutch, and which players thrive in these situations? How difficult is it for a team to rebuild through the draft? Basketball Analytics introduces new statistics and new concepts to explore these questions and more.

    The modern player is technically more capable, physically faster and stronger, and has access to more coaching and sports science resources than ever before. With the high rewards associated with success, there has never been more pressure on coaches to win, develop players, and play soccer the ‘right way’. Aimed at Soccer coaches of all levels and with players of all ages and abilities The Modern Soccer Coach 2014 identifies the areas that must be targeted by coaches who want to maximize a team’s potential – the Technical, Tactical, Physical, and Mental sides to the game. Written by UEFA ‘A’ and NSCAA Premier licensed coach Gary Curneen – The Modern Soccer Coach 2014 offers contemporary focused and distilled insight into what soccer coaches need to do, and how! Filled with practical no-nonsense explanations, focused players drills and more than 30 illustrated soccer templates, The Modern Soccer Coach 2014 will help you – the modern coach - to create team performances that win match after match! - Understand how the game has changed and what areas determine success in the game today. - Create modern exercises that focus on tactical, technical, mental, and physical elements of the game. - Learn what sets coaches like Mourinho, Klopp, Rodgers, and Guardiola apart from the rest. - Develop a competitive and enjoyable atmosphere for yourself and your players. - And much more!

    Football supporters across the country set aside their differences and played an instrumental role in the demonstrations that led to Mubarak’s deposition. A year later elements allegedly loyal to the old regime took a terrible revenge when they massacred supporters during a match played in Port Said, killing 74 Al Ahly supporters in an incident that shocked the world.James Montague is the only western journalist to be given full unrestricted access to the Ahlawy; a passionate but largely obscure group of Al Ahly fans when he first met them in 2007, they went on to play a vital role in the Egyptian revolution. In Ultras, Montague takes up the Ahlawy's story from when they numbered just a few hundred committed Al Ahly fans, through to the mass protests on Tahrir Square, which helped depose Murbarak, the horrors of Port Said, the World Club Championships in Japan, and beyond. He joins up the dots between the Ahlawy’s rise, the revolution and their slaughter.In this moving and dramatic work, Montague demonstrates how the dividing line between football and politics is paper thin, and how a hitherto unknown group of fans played a pivotal role in shaping the destiny of a nation.