“Step aside Tom Friedman, Sam Huntington, and Amy Chua. Franklin Foer’s dark and witty tale of the soccer world reveals the meaning of globalization in all its joys and horrors.”—Robert Kagan Just in time for the 2026 World Cup in North America—a reissue of the bestselling sports classic, featuring a new preface from the author. With the 2026 World Cup in all three nations of North America, the power and scope of soccer has truly become global. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work, Franklin Foer argues that soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a unique window into the crosscurrents of modern globalization, with all of its benefits and pitfalls. Soccer clubs don’t represent geographic areas; they stand for social classes and political ideologies. Unlike baseball or tennis, soccer is freighted with ancient hatreds and history. It’s a sport with real stakes—a catalyst capable of ruining regimes and launching liberation movements. Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shattering myths and dire predictions. Instead of destroying local cultures, as the left warned, globalization has revived tribalism. Far from the triumph of capitalism that the right anticipated, it has entrenched corruption. From Brazil to Bosnia, Italy to Iraq, How Soccer Explains the World is an eye-opening chronicle of how a beautiful sport and its fanatical followers can illuminate the fault lines of a society, whether it’s terrorism, poverty, anti-Semitism, authoritarianism, or radical Islam—issues that continue to affect all of us. At a time when globalization is under attack and many Americans yearn for retrenchment and retreat from the world, this remarkable book—filled with blazing intelligence, colorful characters, wry humor, and an equal passion for soccer and humanity—continues to make sense of our troubled times.

July 13th 2014, World Cup Final, the last ten minutes of extra time: Germany forward Mario Gotze, receiving a floated pass from his international teammate Andre Schurrle, jumps slightly to meet the ball and cushion it with his chest. Landing on his left foot, he takes a step with his right, swivels, and in one fluid motion, without the ball touching the ground, volleys it past the onrushing Argentine goalkeeper into the far corner of the net. The goal wins Germany the World Cup for the first time in almost thirty years. In the aftermath, Gotze looks dazed, unable to comprehend what he has done. In "Das Reboot," "Guardian" journalist and television pundit Raphael Honigstein charts the return of German soccer from the international wilderness of the late nineteen-nineties to Gotze's moment of genius and asks, how did this come about? How did German soccer reinvent itself away from its efficient but unappealing and defensively-minded past to the free-flowing, attack-minded soccer that was on display in 2014? The answer takes him from California to Stuttgart, from Munich to the Maracana, via Dortmund and Amsterdam. Packed with exclusive interviews with the key protagonists, Honigstein's book lifts the lid on the secrets of German soccer's success.

"A humorous A-to-Z look at all things soccer from 'Men in Blazers' sports personalities Roger Bennett and Michael Davies"--

"Soccer is the world's favorite pastime, a passion for billions around the globe. In the United States, however, the sport is a distant also-ran behind football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. Why is America an exception? And why, despite America's leading role in popular culture, does most of the world ignore American sports in return? Offside is the first book to explain these peculiarities, taking us on a thoughtful and engaging tour of America's sports culture and connecting it with other fundamental American exceptionalisms. In so doing, it offers a comparative analysis of sports cultures in the industrial societies of North America and Europe. The authors argue that when sports culture developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, nativism and nationalism were shaping a distinctly American self-image that clashed with the non-American sport of soccer. Baseball and football crowded out the game. Then poor leadership, among other factors, prevented soccer from competing with basketball and hockey as they grew. By the 1920s, the United States was contentedly isolated from what was fast becoming an international obsession. The book compares soccer's American history to that of the major sports that did catch on. It covers recent developments, including the hoopla surrounding the 1994 soccer World Cup in America, the creation of yet another professional soccer league, and American women's global preeminence in the sport. It concludes by considering the impact of soccer's growing popularity as a recreation, and what the future of sports culture in the country might say about U.S. exceptionalism in general." http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/prin021/00061115.html

When twelve-year-old Arcady is sent to a children's home after his parents are declared enemies of the state in Soviet Russia, soccer becomes a way to secure extra rations, respect, and protection but it may also be his way out if he can believe in and love another person--and himself.

"A brilliant, thorough, utterly mad book, the product of the most admirable sort of enthusiasm: total. You like soccer, you don't like soccer, it doesn't matter. If you think of yourself as a serious fan, if you want to continue on the path towards enlightenment and take your devotion to another level, you'd best check out the standard being set here." --ESPN.com On one level, Brilliant Orange is about a people whose unique point of view has led to the most enduring arts, the weirdest architecture, and a bizarrely cerebral form of soccer--Total Football--that led in 1974 to a World Cup finals match with arch-rival Germany, as well as to a devastating loss against Spain in 2010. On another, the book also offers, as a 5-star reviewer put it: "insight into the Dutch mindset beyond football. You learn about Dutch history, art, and society while learning about their great players and the total football. You don't actually need to be a football fan to enjoy the book." "One of those strangely informative books that will entertain those who have little interest in either soccer or the Netherlands." -- The Economist "Wry, obsessional, digressive, deep. This is football as art, metaphor, and cultural signifier." -- The Guardian

" ... explores the myths of Holland's "Good War" -- the brave nation that hid Anne Frank from the Nazis -- by using the story of soccer in Holland and the Amsterdam club Ajax to puncture the tales that post-war Holland lives by. Through interviews with Resistance fighters, survivors, wartime soccer players and more, Kuper uncovers a history that has been largely ignored. Ranging far beyond the Netherlands and examining the stories of soccer and war in England, German and France, Kuper writes an alternative history of Europe at its darkest hour. He helps change the way we understand ordinary people's experience of the war in Europe." -- Back cover.

Poor training facilities, bad diets, packed stands, great songs, scary center-backs, world-class strikers and, after 90 minutes of kicking and being kicked, a brown ale in a dirty bath. One of British soccer’s greatest heroes talks about the golden era, before football became a circus of media hype