This book is a useful, inspired knowck off on Freakonomics. Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski wrote it.

Insights:

1. In 2002 everyone knew that the obscure, bucktoothed Brazilian kid Ronaldinho must have lucked out with the free kick that sailed into England's net, because he couldn't have been good enough to place it deliberately.

2. England in the 1980-2001 period outscored its opponents by 0.84 goals per game. That was 0.21 more than we had predicted based on the country's resources. In short, England was not underperforming at all. Contrary to popular opinion, it was over-performing.

3. Soccer is not only small business business. It's also a bad one. Anyone who spends any time inside soccer discovers that just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the soccer business.

4. Provincial towns like Nottingham, Glasgow, Dortmund, Birmingham or Rotterdam all have won European Cups, while the seven biggest metropolitan areas in Europe--Istanbul, Paris, Moscow, London, St. Petersburg, Berlin and Athens--never have. This points to an odd connection between city size, capital cities and soccer success.

5. Staging a World Cup won't make you rich, but it does tend to cheer you up.

6. Norway had the best soccer fans in Europe: (They did this by determining which country plays the most soccer, which watches the most on tv, and which actually goes to the stadium most)

7. A nation’s income, population, and soccer experience are the main determinants of a team’s survival of the first round of the World Cup.

8. Some clubs might go bankrupt (for example, Fiorentina, Leeds United), but  soccer clubs are among the most stable businesses around. Even the few that are not bailed out often reappear with a new name, money, and the same fans and swiftly move up the ranks to the highest league again (Fiorentina, for example).

9. Hosting the World Cup or European Cup reduces suicides in European countries,

10. Iraq is among the best overperformers in world soccer, and 50 percent of British ticket holders don’t take up their seats the next season.

11. Hosting large sports tournaments doesn’t yield any profits or many economic benefits, but it does increase people’s happiness—a finding drawn from the influential field of happiness economics.

12. The burden of tradition on how soccer clubs are run. Managers are hired too soon, barely interviewed and usually proceed to buy big-name players to resolve a crisis. This, the authors point out, keeps the fans happy, but is a suicidal pattern.

13. The absurdity of signing players who have shone at a World Cup or European Championship. Such players never recapture that level of excellence and cannot be expected to be that outstanding on a day-in, day-out basis playing for a club rather than their national team.

14. There's usually an over-abundance of blond players being recommended by club scouts. This happens because scouts scanning a game involving 22 similar-looking players notice the blond-haired players more, because they stand out.

15. Although Brazilians tend to be the most skilled players in the world, they rarely transfer and play well in England.

[From the Great Books Series. Also see The Success Manual  - Encyclopedia of Advice, which contains summaries of 100+ Most useful books.]