Why England Lose cover art

Why England Lose

And Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained

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Why England Lose

By: Simon Kuper, Stefan Szymanski
Narrated by: Colin Mace
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About this listen

Why do England lose? Why does Scotland suck? Why doesn’t America play the sport internationally… and why do the Germans play with such an efficient but robotic style?

Using insights and analogies from economics, statistics, psychology and business to cast a new and entertaining light on how the game works, "Why England Lose" reveals the often surprisingly counterintuitive truths about soccer.

No training in economics is needed to read Why England Lose. But the listener will come away from it with a better understanding not just of football, but of how economists think and why they know.

©2009 Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski (P)2010 Audible Ltd Sports Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

" Why England Lose is an Arsene Wenger of a book - more thoughtful than most of its rivals and, by football standards, positively intellectual." ( The Times)
"It is rare, even after the great leaps football literature has taken in the past two decades, to find a book that takes the breath away, but Why England Lose does. Every page engages, entertains and challenges the lazy assumptions that still dominate football, not merely in its punditry, but all too often in the way that clubs are run." ( FourFourTwo)
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I loved all the interesting statistics throughout, the only thing that annoyed me was the way they kept on saying that a win percentage was .72% etc..... when it was actually 72%

Brilliant

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I found this mostly interesting as a big football fan, as well as a non-academic interest in stats, trends and analysing data!

Interesting for stats geeks!

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This was an interesting although subjective book. The narrative was engrossing but not all the 'facts' were presented in a balanced way, for example Spain during the Franco years is described as isolationist and this is seen as a negative factor in football evolution yet the amazing Real Madrid side of the late fifties and early sixties didn't get a mention. I also doubt that having fewer English players in the Premier league would improve the situation of Englands poor record in world football since Spain use mainly spanish-based players in their world conquering team. Overall it was an interesting book but not really one I would pay attention to.

Misleading in places!

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I found it a great history of Argentina book. I liked the narrator but he sounded like he was having an asthma attack in the long sentences. I think wilson should've read the historical Argentinian pieces, and Charlie Ashtma should've read the Messi and Maradona bits.

Great book

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This book is brilliant, but the problem is it has a lot of tables that convert horribly to audio.

There is one table that takes about 6 minutes to read out.

Given the amount of data involved in the book I think you are much better off reading it than listening to it.

That said it's incredibly interesting.

Better off reading it

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great listening and performance from Colin Mace very interesting book. need updating to the latest edition.

One for Football Fans

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This is a terrific analysis of football making some serious and clever points in a very likeable dry-witted style. The great thing about it as an audiobook is that it will bear several listens to take in the many salient points. Thoroughly recommended.

If you follow football, you'll love this

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Contains some interesting insights, though some already feel a bit outdated as was written when capello was in charge of England. Most annoyingly the book contains multiple statistical tables read out line by line - this can take many minutes each time, is tedious and adds no value really. Would be much better to have reference pdf and just summarise in the voiceover.

Interesting but probably better in print

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I felt as thoughi was just listening to reams of numbers for vast large parts.

Horrendously unsuited to be an audio book

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A very entertaining and insightful exposition of the economic dynamics of football. Not being a big footie fan, on the strength of this listen I was able to hold my own with great comments that generated fierce debate as we watched the debacle that was England's world cup attempt. I also noticed that the author was called upon to comment on several post match discussions I heard on the radio, so he's clearly established himself as a major pundit. As per my title - this is good for fans and non-fans alike and will give a brilliant understanding of where we fit into the football world ... and why we lose!

You don't have to be a footie fan to enjoy this

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