The Soccer Book: The Sport, the Teams, the Tactics, the Cups

by David Goldblatt, Johnny Acton

Whether you want to bend it like Beckham or dribble like Ronaldinho, The Soccer Book is the ultimate visual guide to soccer skills, rules, tactics, and coaching, illustrating every aspect of every variant of the sport more clearly, and in more detail, than any other book has done before.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction, Football, Soccer, Reference

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

David Goldblatt is a highly experienced sports writer, broadcaster, and journalist. He is the author of The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football (Penguin, 2006), the definitive historical account of the world’s game. He has also written the World Football Yearbook (Dorling Kindersley, 2002), which was published in nine languages and ran to three editions.

As a journalist, he has written for most of the quality broadsheet newspapers including the Guardian, the Observer, the Financial Times, and The Independent on Sunday, as well as for magazines such as the New Statesman and the New Left Review. He is a regular reviewer of sports books for The Independent and The Times Literary Supplement and is currently the sports’ columnist for Prospect magazine.

As a freelance reporter he has worked for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, including producing documentaries on football in Jerusalem and the politics of football in Kenya. He has also appeared on other BBC radio programmes including The World Today, The World Tonight, The Sunday Morning Show, and Africa – Have Your Say.

In addition to his extensive writing and broadcasting career, he has also taught the sociology of sport at the University of Bristol and has run literacy programmes at both Bristol City and Bristol Rovers football clubs, as well as teaching sport, film, and media at the Watershed arts cinema, also in Bristol.

Reviews

[Tezza · Rating 3 out of 5]

While informative about the rules and many aspects of the sport itself, this book is highly gender exclusive. If you only want to know about men’s soccer teams and individual male players, sure, buy this book. Women get two pages out of 400 with three bubble captions on three other pages(btw the one about women’s olympics is on pg 369 not 367 as indicated by the index).

The book does give info about soccer in countries around the world, though again most only get a page (and some even less).

It’s just disappointing because there is no indication it is gender exclusive. When I pick up a book that is titled “The Soccer Book: the teams, the rules, the league, the tactics” I didn’t expect it to only be about MEN’S teams, etc. Really I don’t know why I’m so surprised.

There is a good explanation and diagrams of the offside rule 👍.

[Mor‌TeZa · Rating 3 out of 5]

سرد، خشک و نه چندان دوست داشتنی

[Gregory D'Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my 45th book, I read a book about soccer, and gave it 3 stars aka my soccer number.

It's truly thee "Soccer Book" if you want to learn everything about the game from the basics to all the teams, countries, and competitions. But considering I grew up playing and watching soccer religiously, I already knew much of this. And I think it would be the same for most soccer fans.

Again, it does a good job of explaining everything soccer, but is there an audience of readers who don't really know soccer and want to? I don't know, maybe I'm just too big of a soccer nerd. I've spent hours upon hours embracing soccer in different ways: through playing, watching, watching content, playing video games, reading (I used to have a magazine subscription, Soccer 360, back in the day). Most of my friendships blossomed because of soccer. If anything, soccer has made up a little too much of my personality. So yeh, lots of the book is stuff I knew, which was also repeated in said book.

The best parts for me were looking up highlights on YouTube that the book was talking about, most of which I've already seen. I'll say there is definitely something about how the game used to be and how the world competed against each other vs the UCL and FIFA hegemony there is now. And also the idea of becoming a legend before the internet, which I guess would've been a better time for a book like this.

I did learn some stuff I didn't know though, like about an Ecuadorian striker by the name of Alberto Spencer being the top goal scorer of the Copa Libertadores, Japan building a stadium for the 2002 World Cup that can "move" the soccer field under its dome, and that Spurs won the first ever UEFA/Europa Cup (I guess they have won something).

All in all, I've lived a life of soccer, so I didn't really need this book, but I get why my mom gifted it to me.

[Edp24punters · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Davidfdz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED.

[North Landesman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear and well designed.

[Cesar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book was good and helpful to the people that don't know a lot about soccer. This book shows you how to dribble a ball. It also shows the rules of soccer. For example, the book tells what you're not allowed to do in a soccer game. It also shows the skills of soccer. I tells how to keep pace with the soccer ball. Also, it tells sow to make a shot on the goal, offensive and defensive tactics, and how to coach the team. Overall, this is a really great book for starters or if you just what to know more about soccer. If you already know how to play and just want to know new some soccer tactics, then this is a good book to read.

[Jorge Villasenor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Soccer Book published by DK Publish Co. is a great book that gives you a great knowledge of the history of soccer, its rules, and the legendary players and clubs of the sport. It starts of talking about the origin of the sport and tracing back its rules to the Chinese Empires in 200 A.D. The next couple pages talk about the rules of the game and mentions how to play the game. Besides talking about the rules it also talks about other similar sports to soccer such as beach soccer, indoor soccer, freestyle soccer, and paralytic soccer. From there on it mentions the different leagues around the world and gives us an insight of the best clubs from each of these leagues. For example, it talks about the spanish league and the big rivalry between Fc Barcelona and Real Madrid. The book gives us some statistics, charts, and images of the rivalry between these two clubs to give us more knowledge about the topic. It talks about the top goal scores, most capped players, etc, of each of these clubs also. A large part of the book focuses on the different world cups there have been. It starts from the very first World cup in 1930 that was hosted in Uruguay to the last one in 2010 hosted by South Africa. The book also mentions some of the most historic players to have ever played the game. It talks about players such as Pele, Diego Maradona, Zinedine Zidane, Lionel Messi, Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Mueller, Bobby Charlton, Ricardo Kaka, Ronaldo Nazario, Cristiano Ronaldo, etc. Many of these players that were mentioned appear various times in the book because they are legendary players for both the clubs they were in and the country they represented. The later part of the book mentions other competitions like the Copa Libertadores, Copa America, Uefa Champions League, Europa League, Con ConcaCaf Gold Cup, etc. I really enjoyed the book because it literally has just about everything there is to know about soccer. It has everything from the origins of soccer to the different leagues and competitions in the world. The book is also very accurate and up to date to the last world Cup held in 2010. DK Publish Co. also does a great job in mentioning historic games like the Uefa Champions League final in 2006 where AC Milan came back to beat Liverpool in penalties after losing by three goals. Besides this game it also mentions historic games like the famous “Maracanazo” in 1950 when Uruguay beat Brazil in the world cup final at their own home in front of thousands of their own fans. Anyone interested in the sport of soccer would really enjoy this book and would spend hours reading it to gain more knowledge about the game. The book is also very affordable and only cost $11.99 on Amazon and every cent spent on this book is totally worth it. You will not regret buying this book it was the best $11.99 I ever spent on a book!

[Wesley Terpstra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Soccer. The beautiful game. It has been played for centuries and it just keeps getting better and better. “The Soccer Book” by David Goldblatt tells you just about everything you need to know about the game, from basic rules and equipment, to how a professional club is ran, to the advanced skills used by the pro players around the globe. The book starts with a basic history of the game, then goes through all the rules of the game. It then talks about certain teams from all continents of the world. It goes into specific details about certain tournaments, such as the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final. The book is littered with great pictures on almost every page. Details about some of the game’s legendary players can be found throughout the book. Find your favourite team in the book and all the history surrounding them.

If you have never heard of soccer before, and are just being introduced to the game, this book is for you. Goldblatt gives you a break description of the game, accompanied by amazing visuals to help you get a better understanding of the game. Even if you already have an advanced knowledge of the game, the book is still well tailored to you, and will make you more informed about the game. The information available and the astonishing images will leave you wanting to keep on turning pages all the way to the end of the book.

I would recommend this book for anyone ages 10 and up. The language and pictures used make it easy to understand. Anyone from a beginner just learning about the game, to a regular player and fan can read this book. Overall, a quality book by Goldblatt about the beautiful game.

[Assfoot Football Club · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an amazing jaunt through the world of the World's Game. Football/Futbol/Soccer, whatever you think of it as is represented in great detail. David Goldblatt is a terrific explainer of a game that seems outwardly simple and yet can lose people with its stunning complexities. For me, this book was a fantastic refresher course. I thought I knew everything about the game, but Goldblatt filled in a lot of gaps I didn't even know I had. For example the Offsides rule. I've seen so many goals called back by officials without really understanding why. Through a brief yet thorough explanation of the law, I get it now. I may still disagree with the calls and disallowed goals, but at least I can trace what the referee was thinking when he called it.

Anyway, this is a great read for anyone who knows nothing of the sport or for those who think they know everything. There are a ton of pictures, historical stats and random trivia that will keep you going back to it as a reference.

[Kyle Eller · Rating 4 out of 5]

If your into soccer, and anything to do with it which goes from coaching to HISTORICAL, to how to play, this book undoubtedly has it all. There is a lot stuff in this book that is factual and really none of it would have spoilers in it so the freedom of that is that there is no story. (There is an occasional side-story about the game it self) But the notable thing the author lets you know is how it has kept the attention of Millions for decades. (Upon decades) The book itself has everything you want to know about soccer, like who won the first World Cup, and who was the Lionel Messi of the time years ago. This book explains how easy it is to love the game and not think of it as the "Sport where people kick a ball" to what it is known as and should be known as, the beautiful game.

[Zarvon Rejaee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book when I was still learning football (soccer). It taught me about players, club teams, and international teams. It also taught me about important soccer events and rules which really helped me learn the game. This book is organized in sections regarding different subjects; rules, teams, great players, cups, act. Overall this book really helped me have more knowledge about soccer and is fun to read.

[Jorge Acevedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just read this book in school for a paper. I thought this was very informative, and very precise as far as books go in depth. It taught me more about soccer tactics and positional advice. I would definitely recommend this book to you if you need help learning to play or to improve your play in soccer. I give this book a definite five out of five for content and reliable information.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very complete guide to everything soccer. There is a lot of interesting information that will keep a soccer fan intrigued for hours. With everything from different teams, rules of the game, competitions, and soccer skills, this book is truly amazing.

[Gavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE BEST SOCCER BOOK EVER

[soccerstar37 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book ever!!!!!!

[GrandpaBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

great introduction with the DK illustrations you would expect

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helped me a lot with how to play soccer

[Larson]

THis was a good book, have ead it a lot. (I never continue chains, ever)

[Danny Fanek · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an interesting book. I really liked the format and I learned more than I already knew. It featured everything ranging from the world cup to the teams in general. It was enjoyable going back to see how everything was decades ago.