A fascinating insight into the enclosed world of football scouts in the UKA teenaged boy plays football in a suburban park. His name is Raheem Sterling. The call is made: “Get down here quick. This is something special”.Another boy is 8, going on 28. His name is Jack Wilshere. The referee, an Arsenal scout, spirits him away from Luton Town.A young goalkeeper struggles on loan at Cheltenham Town in League Two. His name is Jack Butland. Within months he will be playing for England.Welcome to football’s hidden tribe. Scouts are everywhere yet nowhere, faceless and nameless, despite making the informed decisions worth millions. Award-winning sportswriter Michael Calvin opens up their hidden world, examining their disconnected lifestyles, petty betrayals and unconsidered professionalism of men who spend long, lonely hours on the road.

    It is a perfect window into the cross-currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in between. How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

    He never did. Robin Friday was a brilliant player who could have played in the top flight. He never did. Why? Because Robin Friday was a man who would not bow down to anyone, who refused to take life seriously and who lived every moment as if it were his last. For anyone lucky enough to have seen him play, Robin Friday was up there with the greats. Take it from one who knows: 'There is no doubt in my mind that if someone had taken a chance on him he would have set the top division alight,' says the legendary Stan Bowles. 'He could have gone right to the top, but he just went off the rails a bit.' Loved and admired by everyone who saw him, Friday also had a dark side: troubled, strong-minded, reckless, he would end up destroying himself. Tragically, after years of alcohol and drug abuse, he died at the age of 38 without ever having fulfilled his potential. The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw provides the first full appreciation of a man too long forgotten by the world of football, and, along with a forthcoming film based on Friday's life, with a screenplay by co-author Paolo Hewitt, this book will surely give him the cult status he deserves.

    Here is his rollicking report.

    As he sharpens his skills, he gains surprising insight into the daunting challengesaphysical, psychological, and intellectualathat pro athletes must master In Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis infiltrated the insular world of competitive ScrabbleA(R) players, ultimately achieving aexperta status (comparable to a grandmaster ranking in chess). Now he infiltrates a strikingly different subcultureapro football. After more than a year spent working out with a strength coach and polishing his craft with a gurulike kicking coach, Fatsis molded his fortyish body into one that could stand upabarelyato the rigors of NFL training. And over three months in 2006, he became a Denver Bronco. He trained with the team and lived with the players. He was given a locker and uniforms emblazoned with #9. He was expected to perform all the drills and regimens required of other kickers. He was unlike his teammates in some waysamost notably, his livelihood was not on the line as theirs was. But he became remarkably like them in many ways: He risked crippling injury just as they did, he endured the hazing that befalls all rookies, he gorged on 4,000 daily calories, he slogged through two-a-day practices in blistering heat. Not since George Plimptonas stint as a Detroit Lion more than forty years ago has a writer tunneled so deeply into the NFL. At first, the players tolerated Fatsis, or treated him like a mascot, but over time they began to think of him as one of them. And he began to think like one of them. Like the otherBroncosalike all elite athletesahe learned to perfect a motion through thousands of repetitions, to play through pain, to silence the crowdas roar, to banish self-doubt. While Fatsis honed his mind and drove his body past exhaustion, he communed with every classic athletic typeathe affable alpha male, the overpaid brat, the youthful phenom, the savvy veteranaand a welter of bracingly atypical players as well: a fullback who invokes Aristotle, a quarterback who embraces yoga, a tight end who takes creative writing classes in the off-season. Fatsis also witnessed the hidden machinery of a top-flight football franchise, from the God-is-in-the-details strategizing of legendary coach Mike Shanahan to the icy calculation with which the front office makes or breaks careers. With wry candor and hard-won empathy, A Few Seconds of Panic unveils the mind of the modern pro athlete and the workings of a storied sports franchise as no book ever has before.

    It saved me, and 50 years on that hasn't changed one bit – I’d be lost without it…’Harry is the manager who has seen it all – from a dismal 70s Portakabin at Oxford City and training pitches with trees in the middle to the unbeatable highs of the Premiership, lifting the FA Cup and taking on Real Madrid in the Champions League. With his much loved, no-nonsense delivery, Harry brings us a story filled with passion and humour that takes you right inside every drama of his career.Harry finally tells the full story of all the controversial ups and downs – the pain and heartache of his court case, the England job, his love for Bobby Moore, his adventures at Portsmouth with Milan Mandaric, the Southampton debacle, Tottenham and Daniel Levy, and not forgetting his years at West Ham or the challenges at his current club QPR.It’s the epic journey of one of the great managers and, along the way, the story of the British game itself over the last five decades. In an era now dominated by foreign coaches Harry is the last of an old-fashioned breed of English football man – one who has managed to move with the times and always come out fighting.

    The celebrated coach shares his philosophy of football, profiles players he has coached, and recounts key moments in his career.

    Rafa expertly navigates fans through intriguing European adventures that embrace the triumph and despair of two Champions League finals, three semi-finals and five quarter-finals in what was a golden era for the Anfield club - an era that supporters felt gave them their pride back after years in the wilderness. What sets Champions League Dreams apart is the unique ways in which Rafa allows fans into his high-pressured world, the fascinating glimpses he offers of a top manager's thought processes and decision making during the cut and thrust of a high-octane European campaign. Understand how a great manager prepares for, then executes, a master-plan for European success.

    It's not about the money or the fame; it's about their passion for what they do.And passion is something that has fueled Gruden's entire career. From his college playing days and his climb through the coaching ranks -- from college to assistant coaching jobs with the NFL's elite teams, to his first head coach job with the Oakland Raiders, and finally, with the Tampa Bay Bucs -- his meteoric rise is unparalleled. Underneath it all, though, he's just a humble, hardworking, no-nonsense guy who has no hobbies: "I'm not a scratch golfer. I don't know how to bowl. I can't read the stock market. Hell, I have a hard time remembering my wife's cell phone number. But I can call 'Flip Right Double X Jet 36 Counter Naked Waggle at 7 X Quarter' in my sleep."Now, in this motivational memoir, Gruden provides insight into what makes him tick. Do You Love Football?! is an intimate look at his life as a player, coach, and head coach, as well as the principles that have made him the hottest coach in the NFL.

    Explore how certain myths arose while using our own cognition as a window into the game's popular narratives. New basketball concepts are introduced, such as power plays, portability and why the best player shouldn't always shoot. Discover how the box score can be misleading, why "closers" are overrated and how the outcome of a game fundamentally alters our memory. Behavioral economics, traffic paradoxes and other metaphors highlight this thought-provoking insight into the NBA and our own thinking. A must-read for any basketball fan -- you'll never view the sport, and maybe the world, the same again.

    In the tradition of Moneyball, The Last Hero, and Wicked Good Year, Barry’s Bottom of the 33rdis a reaffirming story of the American Dream finding its greatest expression in timeless contests of the Great American Pastime.

      This is a sports and business tale of how money, ambition, and twenty-five years of drama remade an ancient institution into a twenty-first-century entertainment empire. No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold. Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly two hundred countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul. Deeply researched and drawing on one hundred exclusive interviews, including the key decision makers at every major English team, The Club is the definitive and wildly entertaining narrative of how the Premier League took over the world.

    It's all here--the lawsuits, the crazy confluence of sports and ego and civic destiny, and of course, superstars Ichiro, A-Rod, Randy Johnson, and Ken Griffey. Seattle sportswriter Art Thiel recounts the painful birth, awkward adolescence, and hard-won maturity of one of the most beloved teams in sports history.

    This is the thinking fan's footballer with a thinking fan's football book. Andrés Iniesta was twelve years old when scouts invited him into Barcelona's famous La Masia academy. Shortly after he joined the club, Barca legend Pep Guardiola remarked of him, 'This lad is going to retire us all.'Iniesta rapidly became a permanent fixture in the Barca midfield, propelling the club to a raft of trophies, including eight La Liga championships and four Champions League titles. With his country he has won the European Championship twice, and scored the winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final.Behind the wonderfully graceful passing and movement, and the accolades and trophies he has garnered, there exists an intelligent and thoughtful man who, until now, has let his beautifully skilful feet do the talking. In The Artist: Being Iniesta, the Spanish maestro paints a vivid self-portrait, in his own words but also in those of his coaches, team-mates, opponents, friends and family. The result is intriguing.

    Since his death at just 51 from pancreatic cancer, this has been the accepted view of a national hero. But how much do we really know of England’s only World Cup-winning skipper? We all know that Bobby Moore was an extraordinary captain and defender, but alongside his legendary feats on the pitch he knew scandal, death threats, bankruptcy business, and the sack. He divorced after a long affair, was rumored to have friends in the East End underworld, and he loved a drink. The tragedy of his life was to be ignored by soccer in his latter years and to drift into obscurity. After he applied to be England manager, the FA didn’t even bother to send a rejection letter. There was no job in the game and, famously, no knighthood. As well as the undeniable moments of glory, this long overdue, definitive biography won’t shy away from the grit. Tracing his journey from the East End to a pedestal outside Wembley Stadium, it will, for the first time, look at Moore’s life from all sides, through the testimony of teammates, rivals, family, and friends. What was Moore like to play with, to drink with? What was he like as a husband, father, opponent, and captain? A struggling manager and a failed businessman? This book will tell the story of an Essex boy who became the patron saint of English soccer, revealing a lifetime of intrigue, triumph, and tragedy in between.