THERE AREN'T 5:

The 5 Must-Read Books on Soccer : With World Cup kicking off this weekend, The Daily Beast selects the books you must read to have a chance of understanding the fever gripping the world. (Joshua Robinson, 6/13/10, Daily Beast)

4. Soccernomics By Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

When England inevitably gets eliminated in some tragic quarterfinal penalty shootout, the country may plunge into a summer-long depression. But Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski won’t be surprised. In fact, according to their counterintuitive economic analysis, England will have once again overachieved at the World Cup. Based on factors like population and wealth, they explain that there really isn’t much reason for countries like England and France to expect to do well at international tournaments. Meanwhile, they argue that countries like the United States and China are destined to become the next great superpowers of soccer. Even for the longtime fans who may disagree with the arguments—like the baseball purists who bristle at the mention of Moneyball—Soccernomics provides a slew of talking points for the World Cup.

The big takeaway from Soccernomics, which explicitly tried to be Moneyball for soccer, is how few metrics even exist for analyzing the game. Take a look at the freely available stats you can get on every major league baseball player--we'll pick Kyle Davies--then check out the entirety of the stats offered at the Premiere League site, which--we kid you not--is so thin it sorts players in Tallest and Shortest order. It's an interesting enough read but ultimately just shows why Americans will revolutionize the game once we apply our analytical methods to it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2010 8:00 AM