In early March 2020 Liverpool were two wins away from an extraordinary achievement, on course for their first league title win in 30 years - since the heads days of Kenny Dalglish - and likely to seal it in the Merseyside derby against their great rivals Everton. And all this an incredible two months before the season was due to end. Then, as we all know, the season was postponed.The architect of the club's great resurgence - including their 2019 UEFA Champions League win - has been J�rgen Klopp. In his personal love-letter to the man, Anthony Quinn, journalist, novelist and life-long Liverpool fan, has written an inspiring and affectionate portrait of the incredible German manager, who came to Liverpool in late 2015, with a growing reputation from his successes at Borussia Dortmund.Closely following the three month break, as well as the club's title-clinching return, Quinn offers a uniquely revealing and personal take on this long-awaited triumph.

    He took possession of United's left wing and never loosened his grip. Over a fourteen year career so far, he's seen them all come and go: Cantona, Schmeichel, Beckham and the rest. Sir Alex Ferguson said of Giggs 'I knew we had an outstanding talent when we gave him his debut.' That was back in 1991, but it remains as true in 2005 as it ever was. Giggs has been a pivotal figure in United's dominance of the Premiership. There have been rivals but no other team can match their sustained record of success over recent years. And Giggs is the only player to have played in all eight of those title winning campaigns. Off the pitch, Ryan Giggs has always closely guarded his private life. But here he opens up for the first time, sharing details of the sometimes turbulent childhood that shaped him and the relationships that have mattered to him to reveal the man behind the famous number 11 red shirt. One thing seems clear: the Old Trafford crowd will be singing 'Giggs will tear you apart again!' for a few years yet.

    James Montague travelled there for three years, observing the region's cultures and politics through the prism of football and interviewing all the major teams along the way. He soon realised that to understand the game there is to understand its people. For as much as football forms an unlikely common thread between different countries, the sport also reflects what is unique in the national characters of those who play, support and organise it.When Friday Comes is an insightful and humorous account of Montague's journey, during which he gets stoned with the Yemeni FA, harangues Iran's Deputy President at the World Cup, has a gun pulled on him by genocidal Lebanese football fans, encounters a rioting group of fanatical young Jews singing 'I'm West Ham 'til I Die' in mockney English and was made to strip and then dance for the Iraqi national team.This is a compelling travel memoir that will enlighten, surprise and entertain football fans everywhere.

    Since then, it has reflected it's home country—the Giro's capricious and unpredictable nature matches the passions and extremes of Italy itself.A desperately hard race through a beautiful country, the Giro has bred characters and stories that dramatize the shifting culture and society of its home.  There was Alfonsina Strada, who cropped her hair and raced against the men in 1924, or Ottavio Bottecchia, expected to challenge for the winner's "Maglia Rosa," the famed pink jersey, in 1928, until he was killed on a training ride—most likely by Mussolini's Black Shirts. And what would a book about the Giro d'Italia be without Fausto Coppi, the metropolitan playboy with amphetamines in his veins, guided by a mystic blind masseur, who seemed to glide up the peaks.  But let us not forget his arch rival Gino Bartali—humble, pious and brave.  It recently emerged that he smuggled papers for persecuted Jewish Italians. Then there is the Giro's most tragic hero, Marco Pantani, born to climb but fated to lose.Halted only by World Wars, the Giro has been contested for over a century, and The Beautiful Race is a richly written celebration of this legendary race.

    And he does it all dressed as the superhero, the Flash.Though his journey was both mentally and physically exhausting, it was the astounding acts of kindness and hospitality he encountered along the way that kept him going. Whether they gave him a bed for the night, food for the journey, a donation to his charity or companionship and encouragement during the long days of running, Jamie soon came to realise that every person who helped him towards his goal was a superhero too.

    Ever wondered how a transfer deal is done? What a manager says during his pre-match team-talk? What he screams from the techincal area? What goes on in training sesions, and on those long away trips? How a manager carefully builds a team, and what he does when the planning is disrupted by injuries? How he lifts a team after a crushing defeat, and keeps their feet on the ground after a resounding victory? How the man in charge handles the ever-present danger of getting sacked in the ultimate results business? In short, how one of today's top professional footballer managers somehow copes with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, with having to live, breathe and sleep football 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? Then read The Gaffer.

    But now the oligarchs who profited from the post-Soviet turmoil are supporting the nation's football clubs and their dreams of glory, resulting in unprecedented success. Along this journey into the heart of Russian football, Marc Bennetts meets the managers, oligarchs, players, pundits and fans that define the Russian Premier league, now the fastest-growing and most intriguing football league in the world. From Andrei Arshavin and the national team's adventures at Euro 2008 to the symbolism of a club from war-torn Chechnya lifting the Russian FA Cup, Football Dynamo uncovers shocking revelations about corruption, hooliganism and racism, but also the true beauty of the game and the country.

    In this classic memoir, he charts the progress of the team during a season that begins with such high hopes and is filled throughout with high drama. Populated with extraordinary characters - and with access to the dressing room that would be impossible today - Only a Game? is both a riveting read and an exceptional insight into professional sport."It remains both greatly admired and unmatched." - Richard Williams, The Guardian"The best and most authentic memoir by a professional footballer" - Brian Glanville"Exceptional. It became the standard by which similar books were judged, and was exceeded in acclaim only with the publication of Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby more than a decade later." - The Times

    Perry Groves spent over a decade in the footballing spotlight. Sometimes he was at the top, often he was at the bottom and that's half the reason the fans loved him so much--and still do. This is the most truthful and hilarious book about professional football you will ever read. Perry Groves was the first signing by the legendary Arsenal manager George Graham, and that unmistakeable figure with his Tin-Tin haircut and cheeky grin was a player in one of the Gunners' greatest sides. Now he has decided to tell all about his rollercoaster years of booze binges, girl-chasing and gambling sprees. He's a nonstop fund of of hilarious anecdotes, recounting top-flight games played with a hangover, 125 mph motorway chases with international stars, visits to a brothel with an England World Cup hero and revealing how one drunken escapade ended with a group of internationals beting questioned over an attempted murder charge. This is a unique chance to find out what top-flight footballers really get up to off the field and how they behave when the dressing room door is closed.

    A massive bestseller in Germany, this astonishing, fascinating and at times hilarious book relates a football career in which Lutz: Became the only person to have played professional football in all FIFA Confederations Was wrongly jailed for match fixing in Singapore spending 101 days in horrific conditions Signed for 25 teams (including Notts Forest, Wimbledon's Crazy Gang and Calgary) Stopped breathing three times after his heart stopped during a game Turned down mighty Bayern Munich to play in Malaysia Coached teams in such exotic locations as Norway, Namibia, Armenia and Cuba Kidnapped a Penguin! All this because he simply loved playing football and because, quite simply, goalkeepers are mad!"

    He takes them to Chapel Street, where the club’s business is determined, and to America, where it is owned. He takes them into Anfield, where many of the most important moments are defined, and he takes them on to the pitches of the Premier League and the Champions League, as we revisit how Liverpool stormed their way to the top of the Premier League this season.

    Toughest, longest and dirtiest of all are the so-called Monuments, the five legendary races that are the sport's equivalent of golf's majors or the grand slams in tennis. Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris--Roubaix, Li�ge-Bastogne-Li�ge and the Tour of Lombardy date back more than a century, and each of them is an anomaly in modern-day sport, the cycling equivalent of the Monaco Grand Prix.Time has changed them to a degree, but they remain as brutally testing as they ever have been. They provide the sport's outstanding one-day performers-the likes of Philippe Gilbert, Fabian Cancellara, Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen, Peter Sagan and Thor Hushovd-with a chance to measure themselves against each other and their predecessors in the most challenging tests in world cycling. From the bone-shattering bowler-hat cobbles of the Paris-Roubaix to the insanely steep hellingen in the Tour of Flanders, each race is as unique as the riders who push themselves through extreme exhaustion to win them and enter their epic history.Over the course of a century, only Rik Van Looy and Eddy Merckx have won all five races. Yet victory in a single edition of a Monument guarantees a rider lasting fame. For some, that one victory has even more cachet than success in a grand tour. Each of the Monuments has a fascinating history, featuring tales of the finest and largest characters in the sport. In The Monuments Peter Cossins tells the tumultuous history of these extraordinary races and the riders they have immortalised.

    Over 16 action-packed years, from a trainee scrubbing the boots of the first XI, to a record-breaking 333 Premier League appearances, Ray Parlour’s never-say-die performances, curly locks and mischievous sense of humour have gone down in Arsenal history.Battling tirelessly on the pitch, often in the shadows of his star-name teammates, Parlour won three premier league titles and four FA Cup trophies with the Gunners. But he was also the heart and soul of the dressing room, the training ground and the after work drink. From nights out with Tony Adams, to teaching Thierry Henry cockney rhyming slang, from playing golf with Dennis Bergkamp to trading Inspector Clouseau jokes with Arsène Wenger, this wonderfully funny and candid autobiography looks back on a golden age of the beautiful game, reliving the banter, the stories and the success.Ray Parlour is an Arsenal legend. During his 16-year career he won 3 Premier League titles, 4 FA Cups and the UEFA Cup. One of the most underrated players of his generation, he was also part of Arsenal’s famous Invincible team of 2003/4, which went the entire Premier League season unbeaten. He is now a regular pundit for TalkSport and Sky Sports. He enjoys a short back and sides.

    In the legendary manager's very first book, and in his own images and captions, Jose Mourinho charts the peaks and troughs of the opening fifteen years of what has been a stellar rise to the summit of the global game.Through more than 120 personally selected images (some of which are exclusive to the book), fans will relish an intimate and unmissable opportunity to understand and further appreciate this giant of the sport.

    This definitive, magisterial study of football and society profiles includes interviews with all-time greats like Bobby Charlton, George Best, Alf Ramsay, Stanley Matthews, Matt Busby and Nat Lofthouse. It is a snapshot of a pivotal era in sporting history; changes and decisions were made in the sixties that would create the game we know today.