That fall, the Black Knights of Army were the class of the nation. Mark Beech, a second-generation West Pointer, recounts this memorable and never-to-be-repeated season with:- Pete Dawkins, the Heisman Trophy winner who rose to the rank of Brigadier General - The long-reclusive Bill Carpenter, the fabled "lonesome end" who earned the Distinguished Service Cross for saving his company in Vietnam - Red Blaik, who led Army back to glory after the cribbing scandal and had the field at Michie Stadium named in his honorCombining the triumph of The Junction Boys with the heroics of The Long Gray Line, Beech captures a unique period in the history of football, the military, and mid-twentieth-century America.

    Who's the greatest quarterback of all time, Joe Montana or Tom Brady? Brett Favre? Who was the most dominate linebacker, Lawrence Taylor or Dick Butkus? Was Deion Sanders better than Ronnie Lott? Are the Packers of Steelers the greatest franchise ever? Sports Illustrated has polled its pro football experts to determine the Top 10 in more than 20 categories. The rankings appear alongside stirring photography and classic stories from SI's archives. This is the best of the NFL's best, or more simply, FOOTBALL'S GREATEST.

    They shield themselves from the tabloids, hide their personalities behind professionalism, and in the words of the cliché, 'do their talking on the pitch'. This book gets up close to them. The Football Men is not a series of celebrity profiles, and it doesn't attempt to unearth secrets in the players' private lives. Rather, it portrays these men as three-dimensional human beings. It describes their upbringings, the football cultures they grew up in, the way they play, and the baggage that they bring to their relationships at work. This multimillion-pound, multinational world is mostly inhabited by ordinary men. The profiles in this book are sometimes funny, but never breathless or sensational. Some of the profiles in this book are based on interviews; others are the results of time the author spent with that person; sometimes the profile is a story of a country. All are fascinating and shed light on their subject to reveal things you wouldn't expect. From one of the great sports writers of our time this is a penetrating and surprising collection of articles on the figures that have defined the modern sporting world.

    The metric gives unparalleled insight into which teams and players are performing at the highest level.Professional gamblers have used Expected Goals to make millions through football betting. Club scouts have used Expected Goals to identify hidden gems in the transfer market. And the media have recently started using Expected Goals to offer more profound insight in their broadcasts.Despite this, most ordinary fans still don’t understand what the Expected Goals method is – or appreciate the significant impact that it is set to have on the sport in coming years.Expected Goals (otherwise known as xG) was originally conjured up by a small corner of the online football analytics community. It didn’t take long for professional gamblers to begin using xG to predict match outcomes. These bettors utilised the Expected Goals method to turn over hundreds of millions of pounds from the bookmakers.Before long, football clubs had caught on to the ground-breaking insight given by xG. Brentford FC were leaders in this field, managing to assemble a Play-Off-reaching squad on a shoe-string budget. In the last five years, the small West London side have turned over more than £100m in transfer profit from their use of the Expected Goals method in player recruitment.More recently, the Expected Goals method has been adopted by the media as a form of insight. Fans are finally catching on to the pioneering means of football analysis. Soon enough, anyone who doesn’t understand the Expected Goals philosophy will be left behind.“This book will make you watch football differently” – Tobias Pedersen“Possibly the most ground-breaking football book ever written” – Football Impact“A brilliant account of the history and future of Expected Goals” – StatShot

    The ginger-haired lad who was plucked from Ayr United for just £300,000 in 1981 didn’t at first seem like he would fit the mould of a Liverpool Football Club player. Nicol made headlines for having ‘the biggest feet in football’ and by his own admission could sometimes act a bit daft. It wasn’t long before he fell victim to countless wind-ups from fellow Anfield Scots Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen and Graeme Souness. They made him wait at a motorway service station on a Sunday morning for a boot deal meeting that didn’t exist… they forced him out of a car to check faulty windscreen wipers then drove off and left him in the snow… when his teammates saw a teddy bear in his bag on an away trip abroad, the stick he got was merciless. But Nicol could take a joke and there was more to him than first met the eye. Brave, skilful and with a winner’s mentality, he was able to play any number of positions on the field. He could pass, head, tackle, read the game well and even had an eye for goal. His love of a packet or three of crisps didn’t seem to affect his appetite for success. He became a mainstay in the record-breaking Liverpool sides that steamrollered their way to trophy after trophy. From the teams of Paisley and Fagan to Dalglish, he played dream football with the likes of Rush, Barnes, Beardsley, Aldridge, Whelan and McMahon. He topped it off with a Player of the Year award and represented his country in a World Cup. It was laughter and glory all the way. Then he hit a brutal turning point in his life. It was hard to take. He drank too much. Kenny left. Souness arrived. He wore the captain’s armband and won an FA Cup… but it felt like the end. Stevie Nicol: 5 League Titles and a Packet of Crisps is the entertaining autobiography of a man who took the good, bad and ugly of his football life on the chin, shrugged it off and ended up having the last laugh.

    But what he has in spades is a genuine love for The Beautiful Game that few of his peers can match. One of the last graduates from football's old school, Jimmy actually worked in the real world - including as a painter and decorator - before turning pro. Maybe that's why he played football with a smile on his face, always says what's on his mind, and is no stranger to a spot of mischief.Having played under the likes of Barry Fry, Harry Redknapp and Phil Brown, appeared alongside names as diverse as Neil Ruddock and Paolo di Canio, and as long as Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Jimmy has racked up an amazing collection of tales and pranks both on and off the football front-line. Told with candour, Bend It Like Bullard is the extraordinary story of his journey from cable TV fitter to cult hero. It will make you smile, chuckle and, occasionally, ROFL.

    He will forever be remembered for two penalties - one missed and scored - for England, but there is so much more to him than that. This book reveals the fascinating story of one of football's greatest personalities. PSYCHO is as honest and straightforward as the man himself.

    Flavored with wild (and often ribald) anecdotes, inside stories, interviews, and never-before-told material, Going Long brings the incredible story of the maverick American Football League to life through the words of those who lived it.

    Picture a performance under the lights and mentally play the perfect game."Technique, speed and tactical execution are crucial components of winning soccer, but it is mental toughness that marks out the very best players - the ability to play when pressure is highest, the opposition is strongest, and fear is greatest. Top players and coaches understand the importance of sport psychology in soccer but how do you actually train your mind to become the best player you can be?Soccer Tough demystifies this crucial side of the game and offers practical techniques that will enable soccer players of all abilities to actively develop focus, energy, and confidence. Soccer Tough will help banish the fear, mistakes, and mental limits that holds players back. Soccer psychology consultant Dan Abrahams shares the powerful techniques that have helped him develop reserve team players to become international players, and guided youth team players from slumps to first team contracts.Covering the mental triumphs of some of the world's leading players - Soccer Tough will help you become the best player you can be. Soccer Tough is for amateur and professional players of all levels, as well as coaches. This book explores how the best soccer players in the world think and gives the reader step-by-step ways to do the same.

    John Crace and Spurs were made for each other. But then the team started to play like possible champions. For most fans, these are the glory moments they dream about. For Crace they just opened a new dimension of anxiety: the fear of success. Crace has supported Spurs for 40 years. His wife thinks he suffers from a psychiatric disorder, but fandom is not only one of the ways he negotiates his relationships, it also helps him make some sense of his life. Vertigo is the story of why fandom that starts out in boyish hope always ends in dark comedy.

    Built by an eccentric owner, molded by a visionary coach and loaded with hardscrabble miners, college All Americans and the sky's the limit ethos of the Roaring Twentys, the Maroons did the unthinkable and dominated the NFL in their rookie season. (Their improbable rise was chronicled each week in the local paper by a rookie Pottsville sportswriter named John OOHara.)Little Pottsville outscored its first seven opponents 162-6. The boys so thoroughly pummeled one opponent, angry fans shot up their train car as the Maroons rode out of town. In the final game of that first season the Maroons traveled to the Midwest to face the league-leading Chicago Cardinals in what was viewed as the championship game for 1925. The Maroons overcame a Windy City snowstorm and an injury to their best player to defeat the Cardinals 21-7.But the fans wanted more.College ball was still king. And as news of PottsvilleOs success was splashed across the news reels and headlines throughout the country, a movement began to have the Maroons face a team of college All-Stars from the University of Notre Dame, featuring the legendary Four Horsemen, the finest collection of talent the game had ever known. Experts believed the NFL was still decades away from competing with college football. But on a neutral field in Philadelphia, in a battle described as The Greatest Football Game Ever Seen, the Maroons shocked the world and turned the football establishment upside-down, defeating Notre Dame 9-7 on a last-second field goal by their captain Charlie Berry who had his kicking cleat bronzed for eternity.The championship was theirs. The NFL was finally on the map. The Maroons victory over Notre Dame had legitimized the league. It also destroyed the town and the team that made it all possible.Claiming the upstart Maroons had violated the territory of another franchise by playing Notre Dame in Philadelphia, the NFL suspended Pottsville and awarded the 1925 NFL championship to the Chicago Cardinals. The Cardinals refused to accept the bogus title and the 1925 crown was never officially awarded. For more than 80 years, fans of the Pottsville MaroonsNthe team Red Grange said was the greatest he ever facedNhave fought to have the 1925 title returned to its rightful owners.With Breaker Boys their remarkable story is told at last.

    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.

    No passing, running, tackling, or kicking. Hey, there isn't even a field. Yet the draft has become more popular than many other sporting events, including the National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL) playoff games, against which it goes head-to-head for viewers. In fact, the draft has spawned its own cottage industry in which names such as Gil Brandt, Mel Kiper, Jr., and Mike Mayock become as well-known as any of the first-round selections.In On the Clock, Ken Rappoport and Barry Wilner chronicle the history of the proceedings. The veteran sports writers take you from the first grab bag in 1936, when Philadelphia chose Heisman Trophy winner Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago and saw him decline to play in the NFL, to the 2014 draft—considered one of the deepest in talent ever.Along the 78-year journey, learn about the competitions for the top overall spot (Peyton Manning vs. Ryan Leaf), the unhappy No. 1s (John Elway and Tom Cousineau), the big flops (JaMarcus Russell) and the late-rounders-turned-superstars (Tom Brady).Meet the draft wizards, from Paul Brown to Bill Walsh and Jimmy Johnson. And the draft whiffs that cost personnel executives their jobs.On the Clock takes you behind the scenes at one of pro football’s yearly major events. Barry Wilner has been a sportswriter for the Associated Press since 1975. He has covered virtually every major sporting event, including twelve Olympics, nine World Cups, twenty-six Super Bowls, the World Series, and the Stanley Cup finals, and has written thirty-nine books. He lives in Garnerville, New York.Ken Rappoport is the author of more than sixty sports books for adults and young readers. Working for the Associated Press in New York for thirty years, he has written about every major sport. His assignments included the World Series, the NBA Finals, and, as the AP’s national hockey writer, the Stanley Cup Finals and the Olympics. He lives in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey.

    Stewart Mandel takes a provocative, hard-hitting look at the hot-button issues: the controversial BCS; the polls and their largely arbitrary rankings; the ego-inflating recruiting craze; cheating and recent scandals; the huge pressures and salaries heaped on coaches; the Heisman hype-fest; the NFL draft; the clunky conference expansions; privileged Notre Dame, college football's greatest juggernaut; and the proliferation of bowl games. You'll getbehind-the-scenes insights on how the issues evolved and why some are almost impossible to resolve.You'll see how tradition, politics, and money influence college football today. You'll discover that, while the rules of the game are hard and fast, the rules governing college football are blurred and pliable. And you'll find a book that's as entertaining, passionate, and thought-provoking as the game itself."Stewart Mandel writes about college football's major controversies with a wit and depth of knowledge that will impress even the most obsessed fans. And because he's both fair and objective, there is something in this book to infuriate nearly everyone."—Warren St. John, author of the bestselling Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania"In a book dripping with sarcasm, Stewart Mandel plays tour guide on an interesting ride through the college football nuthouse."—Bruce Feldman, author of Meat Market and senior writer for ESPN the Magazine

    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.