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The Numbers Game by Chris Anderson and David Sally reveals football's astonishing hidden rules

Fully updated with a new World Cup chapter

Football has always been a numbers game: 4-4-2, the big number 9 and 3 points for a win. But what if up until now we've been focusing on the wrong numbers? What if the numbers that really matter, the ones that hold the key to winning matches, are actually 2.66, 53.4, 50/50, and 0 > 1? What if managers only make a 15% difference? What if Chelsea should have bought Darren Bent?

In this incisive, myth-busting book, Chris Anderson, former goalkeeper turned football statistics guru, and David Sally, former baseball pitcher turned behavioural economist, show that every shred of knowledge we can gather can help us to love football and understand it even more. You'll discover why stopping a goal is more valuable than scoring one, why corners should be taken short, and why it is better to improve your worst player than to buy a superstar.

You'll never play, or watch, a game of football in quite the same way again.

The Numbers Game is essential reading for football fans everywhere and will also appeal to readers who loved Moneyball and Freakonomics.

At 17, Chris Anderson found himself playing in goal for a fourth division club in West Germany; today, he's a professor in the Ivy League at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. An award winning social scientist and football analytics pioneer, Anderson consults with leading clubs about how best to play the numbers game.

David Sally is a former baseball pitcher and a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in the US, where he analyses the strategies and tactics people use when they play, compete, negotiate, and make decisions. He is an adviser to clubs and other organizations in the global football industry. Does the impossible of making the beautiful game even more beautiful -- Malcolm Gladwell A must-read . . . Chris Anderson and David Sally have the ability to see football in a way few have before them. Be warned: The Numbers Game will change the way you think about your favourite team or player, and change the way you watch the beautiful game. -- Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A's, the subject of Moneyball A fascinating and stylish investigation into a rapidly developing way of understanding football -- Jonathan Wilson, author of Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics Whether you are a traditionalist or a numbers nut you can enjoy this book. It's thorough, accessible, and devoid of the absolute truths so many on both sides of the debate peddle. -- Gabriele Marcotti, football broadcaster and author It is the book that could change the game forever * Times * You need to like football. Millions of people do. And they should rush to read this book immediately. The game they love will take on new depth, colour and subtlety -- Ed Smith * The Times *

The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Football is Wrong