Stefan Szymanski

SIMON. SZYMANSKI KUPER (STEFAN.)

'Magnificent... Freakonomics for football' - Guardian

Why France and Germany Win, Why England is Starting to and Why the Rest of the World Loses

Soccernomics

Kay so Queso

This sport might live forever, but we doubt it will ever become a good business. And it's so much the better for that.

I didn’t know it took that long, congrats to ‘em though

There was a landmark moment in 2009 when the Champions League final overtook the Super Bowl as the world's most watched sporting event: 109 million viewers versus 106 million

Over the last thirty years, sports have been the fastest-growing segment of the entertainment business…

Didn’t know he was an Arsenal fan, I guess that makes sense

When the former goalkeeper Osama bin Laden visited London in 1994, he watched four Arsenal matches, bought souvenirs for his sons in the club shop, and remarked that he had never seen as much passion as among soccer supporters.

Besides the 10,000-hour rule, there is another rule that explains sporting success: the $15,000 rule. That's the minimum average income per person that a country needs to win anything. There is only one way around this: be Brazil.

This book has some truly uniquely great lines

Meanwhile, Iceland's legendary handball captain, Olafur Stefansson, seemed to regard himself primarily as an existentialist philosopher.

There was the man who, when asked by Tapp's team what he would save if there were a fire in his house, replied, "Oh, my [match] programs and tapes. No question. And my wife and kids, of course."

“Chained” is a very Hornbyesque word for a Fan's feelings for his club. Ofen, the Fan uses metaphors from drugs (“hooked”) or romantic love (“relationship”, “fell for”).

What I really enjoy about this book is that I’m either learning something new or gaining depth to a lot of arguments I’d previously thought or discussed; I really enjoy the exploration of American sports leagues, specifically the NFL in this section

He added, "I keep referring to the NFL, which has equal sharing...In the US, the most free-market country in the world, they understand that equal distribution of money creates genuine competition."

Lmao that’s hype, everybody loves the Fridge

William "the Refrigerator” Perry, the supersized Chicago lineman, became a cult hero in Britain.

“You can say England is a bitch on Friday night, and on Saturday afternoon you go to a sports pub to watch English soccer."

Bro what the fuck why is our govt so 🤣😭 Whyyyyy would you put Allah on a soccer ball??? Whose idea was that 😭😭

ln fact, when American troops in Afghanistan wanted to woo natives, they were reduced to handing out soccer balls. (The exercise failed: Allah's name was found to be printed on a ball, a blasphemy for an object designed for kicking.) 

Damn shame. I said this take to my dad years ago and he disagreed, that basically only first world countries capable of hosting a World Cup should host world cups (Germany, England, USA, etc.) or at least every other World Cup to prevent nations like Brazil and Qatar from splurging billions on soon to be unused stadiums. Regardless, political strategies aside, I like the nuance of their conclusion. If your people are in poverty, don’t spend billions on stadiums. If your people are rich, hosting a tournament is about as efficient an investment into happiness as there is

We already know that the World Cup didn't make Brazilians richer. It also probably wasn't an efficient way to make them happier.

It's reasonable enough to want to throw the world's biggest party. But you generally don't throw a party to make money. You do it because it makes you happy.

There’s such great economic analysis and soccer insight in this book, but damn I love the way it’s written too. What a shot at Chuck Blazer lmao

He was a man of extraordinary appetites. Weighing in at 450 pounds, he lived on an entire floor in Trump Tower in New York, with one apartment exclusively for his cats. But as the FBI had worked out, Blazer financed this grand life by taking bribes--typically 10 percent of any deal. 

😂😂😂 the Dallas Cowboys of soccer

The raising and dashing of hopes of an economic bonanza became as integral a part of a modern soccer tournament as the raising and dashing of hopes that England would win it.

Happy they’re calling out the scam of billionaire owner taxpayer funded stadium construction

Well, economists certainly respond to incentives. Anyone hoping to persuade taxpayers to pay for a stadium in the US commissioned an economist to write an "economic impact study. By a strange coincidence, these studies always showed that the stadium would make taxpayers rich.

I’m in tears, I love the writing of this book.

The Scottish case is a pretty strong piece of evidence against the apartment-building theory of soccer suicides because if there was ever an excuse for soccer fans to try to kill themselves, it was Scotland's disastrous performance at the World Cup of 1978.

Idk what I expected from the suicide chapter but damn

"Not you," the aide replies. “Egomaniacs don't do that kind of thing. You wouldn't do anything you couldn't live to write about, would you?" You're probably right," says Thompson. As it later turned out, his ashes were fired from a cannon in Aspen, Colorado.

This page is absolutely insane and what a fucking beginning to the chapter. Every story here is mind boggling in a sad but insightful way. RIP the Denver Broncos fan and the Bangladeshi woman

It is one of the eternal stories that are told about soccer: when Brazil gets knocked out of a VWorld Cup, Brazilians jump off apartment blocks. It can happen even when Brazil wins. One writer at the World Cup in Swe- den in 1958 claims to have seen a Brazilian fan kill himself out of "sheer joy" after his team's victory in the final.

Decades later, a German marketing company showed that the knee-jerk response of the countrys fans to the word counterattack was still Gladbach.

Cool little known fact about the history of the game

The legacy of the Industrial Revolution still shapes English fandom. Today the combined population of Greater Merseyside, Greater Man- chester, and Lancashire County is less than 5.5 million, or a little over 10 percent of the English population. 

The Hague's only professional club, ADO, traditionally plays its games in front of a few thousand people, a large proportion of whom are nuts. Little happens on the field beyond the occasional smoke bomb or plague of rabbits. This is the curse of the democratic capital.

Quite a change up from the total football I expected (haha I’m so funny) but that’s really cool to see how fascism and communism lead to imbalanced successes in soccer

The same phenomenon was at work in the communist countries as in the fascist capitals before them. Dictators send resources to the capital because that is where they and their senior bureaucrats and soldiers and secret police officers live. So the dictators do up the main buildings, boost the local economy, and help the soccer club. That’s totalitarian soccer.

Wonderful book. Great insight into the economics of the game and an absolute must-read for any sports fan. The evidence is strong, the stories are compelling and the writing is delightfully witty. There’s also a great humility and strength to their arguments, and there are very intriguing economics lessons for those who are not very interested in sports. Overall, this is top quality sports research with very enlightening economic insights throughout, and I thoroughly enjoyed the duo’s charming writing style.

Soccernomics Why France and Germany Win, Why England is Starting to and Why the Rest of the World Loses

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