What We Think about When We Think about Football

What We Think about When We Think about Football
Author: Simon Critchley
Publisher:
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2018-05-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781781259221

What do we think about when we think about football? Football is about so many things: memory, history, place, social class, gender (especially masculinity, but increasingly femininity too), family identity, tribal identity, national identity, the nature of groups. It is essentially collaborative, even socialist, yet it exists in a sump of greed, corruption, capitalism and autocracy.Philosopher Simon Critchley attempts to make sense of it all, and to establish a system of aesthetics - even poetics - to show what is beautiful in the beautiful game. He explores, too, how the experience of watching football opens a particular dimension in time; how its magic wards off oblivion; how its dramas play out national identity and non-identity; how we spectators, watching football with tragic pensiveness, participate in the play. And of course, as a football fan, he writes about his heroes and villains: about Zidane and Cruyff, Clough and Revie, Shankly and Klopp.

What We Think About When We Think About Soccer

What We Think About When We Think About Soccer
Author: Simon Critchley
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2017-10-31
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0143132679

You play soccer. You watch soccer. You live soccer You breathe soccer. But do you think about soccer? Soccer is the world’s most popular sport, inspiring the absolute devotion of countless fans around the globe. But what is it about soccer that makes it so compelling to watch, discuss, and think about? Is it what it says about class, race, or gender? Is it our national, regional, or tribal identities? Simon Critchley thinks it’s all of these and more. In his new book, he explains what soccer can tell us about each, and how each informs the way we interpret the game, all while building a new system of aesthetics, or even poetics, that we can use to watch the beautiful game. Critchley has made a career out of bringing philosophy to the people through popular subjects, and in What We Think About When We Think About Soccer he uses his considerable philosophical acumen to examine the sport that has captured the hearts and minds of millions.

How Soccer Explains the World

How Soccer Explains the World
Author: Franklin Foer
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0061864706

“An eccentric, fascinating exposé of a world most of us know nothing about. . . . Bristles with anecdotes that are almost impossible to believe.” —New York Times Book Review “Terrific. . . . A travelogue full of important insights into both cultural change and persistence. . . . Foer’s soccer odyssey lends weight to the argument that a humane world order is possible.” — Washington Post Book World A groundbreaking work—named one of the five most influential sports books of the decade by Sports Illustrated—How Soccer Explains the World is a unique and brilliantly illuminating look at soccer, the world’s most popular sport, as a lens through which to view the pressing issues of our age, from the clash of civilizations to the global economy. From Brazil to Bosnia, and Italy to Iran, this is an eye-opening chronicle of how a beautiful sport and its fanatical followers can highlight the fault lines of a society, whether it’s terrorism, poverty, anti-Semitism, or radical Islam—issues that now have an impact on all of us. Filled with blazing intelligence, colorful characters, wry humor, and an equal passion for soccer and humanity, How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

Soccer's Neoliberal Pitch

Soccer's Neoliberal Pitch
Author: John M. Sloop
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2023-05-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0817361022

"American sports agnostics might raise an eyebrow at the idea that soccer represents a staging ground for progressive cultural, social, and political possibility within the United States. It is just another game, after all, in a society where mass-audience spectator sport largely avoids any political stance in other than a generic, corporate-friendly patriotism. But John Sloop picks up on the work of Laurent Dubois and others to see in American soccer-a sport that has achieved immense participation and popularity even as it struggles to establish major league status-a game that permits surprisingly diverse modes of thinking about national identity because of its marginality. As a rhetorician who engages with both critical theory and culture, John Sloop seeks to read soccer as the game intersects with gender, race, sexuality, class, and the logic of neoliberal values. The result of this engagement is a sense of both enormous possibility, and real constraint. If American soccer offers more possibility because of its marginality, looking at how these cultural, social, and political possibilities are closed off or constrained can provide valuable insights into American culture and values. In Soccer's Neoliberal Pitch, Sloop analyzes a host of soccer-adjacent case studies: the equal pay dispute between the US women's national team and the US Soccer Federation, the significance of hooligan literature, the introduction of English soccer to American TV audiences, the strange invisibility of the Mexican soccer league despite its consistent high TV ratings, and the reading of US national teams as "underdogs" despite the nation's quasi-imperial dominance of the Western hemisphere. While there is a growing bookshelf of titles on soccer and a growing number on American soccer, Soccer's Neoliberal Pitch is the first and only book-length analysis of soccer through a rhetorical lens. This book is a model for critical cultural work with sports, with appeal to not only sports studies, but cultural studies, communication, and even gender studies classrooms. It is, independent of its bona fides, an engaging and enjoyable read for the soccer fan and the soccer-curious"--

Soccer Star

Soccer Star
Author: Mina Javaherbin
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1536220604

“Perhaps most importantly, Javaherbin shows that being poor doesn’t stop people from having lives and dreams. A lovely story about soccer, gender, and hope.” — Kirkus Reviews When Paulo Marcelo Feliciano becomes a soccer star, crowds will cheer his famous name — and his mother won’t have to work long hours. For now, Paulo spends his days working on a fishing boat and taking care of his little sister, Maria: she teaches him reading, and he teaches her soccer moves. At the end of the day he can finally play soccer with his friends. But when a player on Paulo’s team is injured, will they finally change the rules and let a girl show her stuff? Set in a country whose resilient soccer stars are often shaped by poverty, this uplifting tale of transcending the expected scores a big win for all.

Soccer Thinking for Management Success

Soccer Thinking for Management Success
Author: Peter Loge
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2018-07-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1785357557

The modern world is networked and always working. Organizations no longer have the luxury of time. Expertise is no longer confined to a couple of smart guys in corner offices, reviewing information to which only they have access and issuing instructions through layers of middle-men to nine-to-fivers who carry out the dictates and feed paper back up the chain, awaiting the next set of instructions. Today’s successful organization is decentralized and never stops moving. In fact, organizational success is a lot like soccer. Every player is both a specialist and generalist. Responsibility on the field is distributed, and everyone on the team works for everyone else. Communication among players is constant. Soccer is 90 minutes of systems thinking in action. Soccer Thinking for Management Success is by a soccer fan and player who has spent a career building and running teams and organizations. He draws on insights from leaders, known and not-so-well-known who use soccer thinking to succeed. This is not just another book on how to be a great leader by a famous person. This is a management and leadership book by, and for, the rest of us.

The Language of the Game

The Language of the Game
Author: Laurent Dubois
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2018-03-27
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 046509449X

Essential reading for soccer fans as the 2022 World Cup approaches, this lively and lyrical book is "an ideal guide to the world's most popular sport" (Simon Kuper, coauthor of Soccernomics). Soccer is not only the world's most popular game; it's also one of the most widely shared forms of global culture. The Language of the Game is a passionate and engaging introduction to soccer's history, tactics, and human drama. Profiling soccer's full cast of characters—goalies and position players, referees and managers, commentators and fans—historian and soccer scholar Laurent Dubois describes how the game's low scores, relentless motion, and spectacular individual performances combine to turn each match into a unique and unpredictable story. He also shows how soccer's global reach makes it an unparalleled theater for nationalism, international conflict, and human interconnectedness, with close attention to both men's and women's soccer. Filled with perceptive insights and stories both legendary and little known, The Language of the Game is a rewarding read for anyone seeking to understand soccer better—newcomers and passionate followers alike.

0 - 7 Seconds

0 - 7 Seconds
Author: Marcus Dibernardo
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2017-06-29
Genre:
ISBN: 9781548488666

Is the future of player development going to be above the neck? What does "above the neck" mean exactly? To me, it means that the next great advances in player development, will be in the area of the brain, above the neck, not on the physical side. At this point in time, strength and fitness coaches have taken the physical component just about as far as they can, but the brain has received little attention, yet the brain has huge potential when it comes to increasing sports performance levels. The important question for coaches is, how can we in a real and meaningful way develop the soccer brain, so players can reach their highest levels of performance? The answer I came up with may surprise you, it centers around what happens during the milliseconds to seconds before we make a soccer decision on the field. You may be thinking this is pretty obvious stuff, the player takes in current information and makes a decision based upon the information, but there is a catch and it may not be that simple. What if you are not actually consciously in control of the decisions you think you are making, is it even possible for your brain to make decisions before you are consciously aware of what you chose to do? You may think you are making a conscious decision, but that decision may have already been made 0-7 seconds before it became known to your conscious mind. The premise of this book is that you may not be in as much control of your actions as you think you are. All this might sound a little like science fiction, but the reality is, it may be very true, and if it is indeed true, it gives us even more reason to re-examine how we develop soccer players. This book focuses on examining the neurology of decision-making, in the context of soccer coaching and overall player development, it also covers the current research pertaining to conscious and unconscious decisions-making, and how decisions can be made 0-7 seconds before the conscious mind is even aware of the decision. Finally, the book will use the scientific information on decision-making to suggest some types of training can best help players become top decision-makers on the soccer field.

You Say Soccer, I Say Football

You Say Soccer, I Say Football
Author: Edward Patrick Akinyemi
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-09-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9781715531102

What sensible person would ever shed so many tears, become so angry, and care so deeply about a game in which 22 players kick a ball around for 90 minutes?And yet, the world's most popular game continues to seduce millions of people all over the world. But football fans are constantly accused of caring too much about something that is "just a game". Unfortunately, these accusations are probably justified. They shouldn't care so much. They shouldn't shed all those tears over that last-gasp goal that lost them the championship. They shouldn't become enraged over that missed penalty.And yet, they do. You Say Soccer, I Say Football will tell you something that every fan of the game knows deep inside his or her heart. That underneath the surface, there are serious, bigger-picture lessons to be learned through football.Lessons about life, identity, leadership, mental health, and society. Lessons that encompass psychology, philosophy, politics, racism, and inequality. Lessons that, if only football fans mastered the art of rationally explaining them, would both legitimize this seemingly irrational passion and silence the critics that look down on them because of their obsession.From the author of Community Heroes: What a Year as an AmeriCorps VISTA Member Taught Me About Community Development and writer and podcast host for the prominent football website Black and White and Read All Over, Akinyemi's latest book You Say Soccer, I Say Football will help you explain why and understand how even though football is just a game, it can teach us invaluable lessons about life and ourselves.Because as Pope John Paul II once said, "amongst all unimportant subjects, football is by far the most important."

Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup

Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup
Author: Beau Dure
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2019-11-15
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1538127822

October 10, 2017. The U.S. men’s soccer team loses in Trinidad and Tobago, and fails to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Winning soccer’s greatest prize never seemed more distant. Immediate fixes—a new coach, a revamped professional league, a commitment to coaching education—won’t put the USA in the global elite. The nation is too fractious, too litigious, too wrapped up in other sports, and too late to the game. In Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup: A Historical and Cultural Reality Check, Beau Dure shows what American soccer is really up against. Using hundreds of sources to trace more than 100 years of history, Dure delves into the culture that only recently lost its disdain for the global game and still doesn’t have the depth of soccer insight and passion that much of the world has had for generations. The difficulty isn’t any single thing—the mismanagement of failed leagues, the inability to agree on a path forward, the lawsuits that stem from an inability to agree, or the unique American culture that treasures its homegrown sports. It’s everything. And yet, Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup is ultimately optimistic. Dure argues that with the right long-term changes, the U.S. can build a soccer environment that consistently produces quality players, strong results, and a lot more fun on the international stage. Soccer fans and skeptics alike will find this a fascinating examination of America’s past, present, and future in the beautiful game.