Failure™ Magazine

Soccernomics

Journalist Simon Kipur and sports economist Stefan Szymanski team up to dispel myths about the world’s most popular sport.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Sports

“Soccer is full of unexamined clichés,” write Simon Kipur and Stefan Szymanski in the first chapter of “Soccernomics” (Nation Books), a new book that evaluates the validity of many commonly accepted beliefs about the game. Using demographic and economic data to make their arguments, the authors reject much of the traditional lore, including the notion that England underachieves in international tournaments, a controversial conclusion in the British Isles, where the book is provocatively titled “Why England Lose.”

In the following Failure interview, Kipur—the journalist half of the duo—discusses the early response to “Soccernomics,” the inevitable comparisons to “Moneyball,” and why countries like the United States, Japan and Australia may soon take their place among the world’s soccer elite.

What inspired you and Stefan to write “Soccernomics”?
When we met in 2007, we discovered that we had the same skeptical mindset about soccer. The game is riddled with accepted truths—that managers determine performance, that England underperforms, and so forth—and Stefan and I wanted to test these notions. The great thing about meeting Stefan is that he wasn’t just another guy with an opinion about soccer—he had data. We assembled all the reigning clichés and asked: “Are they actually true?” As it turns out, many aren’t.

How has the book been received in the soccer community in Europe?
“Soccernomics” is out in the U.K., North America and Holland, with various other editions due later this year. The North American audience seems more open to the ideas presented. It’s probably because North American sports fans are more attuned to investigating data, as their sports are traditionally more statistic-heavy than soccer. Also, lots of Americans and Canadians are now becoming soccer fans, and being fairly new to the game, they are open to new ideas.

In Britain the response has been largely positive, but we’ve also run up against people who take the view: “I already know everything about soccer because I’ve been following it since I was six, and I just know that what you’re saying must be wrong.”

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