An entertaining and openhearted tale of a naïf eventually getting to understand a complex, glittering, beautiful and often cruel society - at least a little.

When Simon Kuper left London for Paris in his early thirties, he wasn't planning to make a permanent move. Paris, however, had other
plans. Kuper has grown middle-aged there, eaten the croissants, seen his American wife through life-threatening cancer, taken his children to countless football matches on freezing Saturday mornings in the city's notorious banlieues, and in 2015 lived through two terrorist attacks on their neighborhood. Over two decades of becoming something of a cantankerous Parisian himself, Kuper has watched the city change.

This century, it has globalized, gentrified, and been shocked into realizing its role as the crucible of civilizational conflict. Sometimes it's a multicultural paradise, and sometimes it isn't. This decade, Parisians have lived through a sequence of shocks: terrorist attacks, record floods and heatwaves, the burning of Notre Dame, the storming of the city by gilets jaunes, and then the pandemic. Now, as the Olympics come to town, France is busy executing the Grand Paris project: the most serious attempt yet to knit together the bejewelled city with its neglected suburbs.

This is a captivating memoir of the Paris of today, without the Parisian clichés.

Written with an economist's brain and a soccer writer's skill, Soccernomics applies high-powered analytical tools to everyday soccer topics

Soccernomics is a revolutionary new way of looking at soccer that has helped to change the way the sport is played. This World Cup edition features ample new material, including a chapter on women's soccer that makes a case for reparations, an analysis of the pandemic's impact on soccer finances, and insights into the failed plan to create a European Super League. Soccernomics remains essential reading for anyone in search of a more strategic, systematic perspective on the game, answering the questions that most consume soccer fans.

With rare and unrivaled access, bestselling coauthor of Soccernomics and longtime Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper tells the story of how FC Barcelona became the most successful club in the world--and how that era is now ending

FC Barcelona is not just the world's highest grossing sports club, it is simply one of the most influential organizations on the planet. At last count, it had approximately 214 million social media followers, more than any other sports club except Real Madrid CF--and by one earlier measure, more than all thirty-two NFL teams combined. It has more in common with multinational megacompanies like Netflix or small nation-states than it does with most soccer teams. No wonder its motto is More than a club. But it was not always so. In the past three decades, Barcelona went from a regional team to a global powerhouse, becoming a model of sustained excellence and beautiful soccer, and a consistent winner of championships. Simon Kuper unravels exactly how this transformation took place, paying special attention to the club's two biggest stars, Johan Cruyff and Lionel Messi, who is arguably the greatest soccer player of all time. Messi joined Barça at age thirteen and, more than anyone, has been the engine and standard-bearer of Barcelona's glory. But his era is coming to an end--and with it, a once-in-a-lifetime golden run. This book charts Barça's rise and fall.

Like many world-beating organizations, FC Barcelona closely guards its secrets, granting few outsiders access to the Camp Nou, its legendary home stadium. But after decades of writing about the sport and the club, Kuper was given access to the inner sanctum and the people behind the scenes who strive daily to keep Barcelona at the top. Erudite, personal, and capturing all the latest upheavals, his portrait of this incredible institution goes beyond soccer to understand FC Barcelona as a unique social, cultural, and political phenomenon.

A passionate, haunting and moving work that tells the breathtaking story of how Dutch Jews survived the unspeakable and came to play a strong role in the rise of the most exciting and revolutionary style of soccer -- Total Football -- the world had ever seen.

When most people think about the Netherlands, images of tulips and peaceful pot smoking residents spring to mind. Bring up soccer, and most will think of Johan Cruyff, the Dutch player thought to rival Pele in preternatural skill, and Ajax, one of the most influential soccer clubs in the world whose academy system for young athletes has been replicated around the globe.

In Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Soccer in Europe During the Second World War, bestselling author Simon Kuper shows how the story of soccer in Holland cannot be understood without investigating what really occurred in this country during WWII. For decades, the Dutch have enjoyed the reputation of having a good war. The myth is even resonant in Israel where Ajax is celebrated. The fact is, the Jews suffered shocking persecution at the hands of Dutch collaborators. Holland had the second largest Nazi movement in Europe outside Germany, and in no other country except Poland was so high a percentage of Jews deported.

Kuper challenges Holland's historical amnesia and uses soccer -- particularly the experience of Ajax, a club long supported by Amsterdam's Jews -- as a window on wartime Holland and Europe. Through interviews with Resistance fighters, survivors, wartime soccer players and more, Kuper uncovers this history that has been ignored, and also finds out why the Holocaust had a profound effect on soccer in the country.

Ajax produced Cruyff but was also built by members of the Dutch resistance and Holocaust survivors. It became a surrogate family for many who survived the war and its method for producing unparalleled talent became the envy of clubs around the world.

Soccer is much more than just the most popular game in the world. It is a matter of life and death for millions around the world, an international lingua franca. Simon Kuper traveled to twenty-two countries to discover the sometimes bizarre effect soccer can have on politics and culture. At the same time he tried to discover what makes different countries play a simple game so differently. Kuper meets a remarkable variety of fans along the way, from the East Berliner persecuted by the Stasi for supporting his local team, to the Argentine general with his own views on tactics. He also illuminates the frightening intersection between soccer and politics, particularly in the wake of the attacks of 9-11, where soccer is obsessed over by the likes of Osama bin Laden. The result is one of the world's most acclaimed books on the game, and an astonishing study of soccer and its place in the world.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2022. Eleven of the fifteen postwar British prime ministers went to Oxford. In Chums, Simon Kuper traces how the rarefied and privileged atmosphere of this narrowest of talent pools - and the friendships and worldviews it created - shaped modern Britain. A damning look at the university clique-turned-Commons majority that will blow the doors of Westminster wide open and change the way you look at British democracy forever.

Con un acceso excepcional e inigualable, el coautor de Soccernomics y periodista del Financial Times, Simon Kuper cuenta la historia de cómo el FC Barcelona se convirtió en el club más exitoso del mundo, y cómo esa era está finalizando.

Del exitoso coautor de Soccernomics llega la historia de cómo el FC Barcelona se convirtió en el club de fútbol más exitoso del mundo, y cómo esa posición envidiada ahora está en juego.

El Barça no es solo el club deportivo más popular del mundo, es simplemente una de las organizaciones más influyentes del planeta. Con casi 250 millones de seguidores en las redes sociales y 4 millones de visitantes en su estadio Camp Nou cada año, no es de extrañar que su lema sea 'Más que un club'. Pero no siempre fue así. En las últimas tres décadas, el Barcelona pasó de un equipo regional a una potencia mundial, convirtiéndose en un modelo de excelencia deportiva y un constante ganador de títulos nacionales e internacionales.

Simon Kuper desentraña exactamente cómo se produjeron estas transformaciones. Describe la estructura organizativa detrás de las decisiones comerciales del club y detalla el trabajo de sus entrenadores, médicos, analistas de datos y nutricionistas que han revolucionado el mundo del deporte. Y, por supuesto, estudia la imponente influencia de las dos grandes leyendas del club, Johan Cruyff y Lionel Messi.

Al igual que muchas empresas líderes a nivel mundial, el FC Barcelona guarda de cerca sus secretos, permitiendo que pocos sean los elegidos que puedan mirar entre bastidores. Pero, después de décadas de escribir sobre el club, Kuper recibió un acceso sin precedentes al santuario interior y a las personas que se esfuerzan a diario por mantener al Barcelona en la cima.

Erudito, personal y plasmando los últimos éxitos y convulsiones, su retrato de esta increíble institución va más allá del fútbol para entender al Barça como un fenómeno social, cultural y político único.

Comencé mi investigación pensando que iba a explicar el ascenso del Barça a la grandeza, pero también terminé detallando el declive y la caída.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION:

With rare and unrivaled access, bestselling coauthor of Soccernomics and longtime Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper tells the story of how FC Barcelona became the most successful club in the world--and how that era is now ending.

FC Barcelona is not just the world's highest grossing sports club, it is simply one of the most influential organizations on the planet. At last count, it had approximately 214 million social media followers, more than any other sports club except Real Madrid CF--and by one earlier measure, more than all thirty-two NFL teams combined. It has more in common with multinational megacompanies like Netflix or small nation-states than it does with most soccer teams. No wonder its motto is More than a club. But it was not always so. In the past three decades, Barcelona went from a regional team to a global powerhouse, becoming a model of sustained excellence and beautiful soccer, and a consistent winner of championships. Simon Kuper unravels exactly how this transformation took place, paying special attention to the club's two biggest stars, Johan Cruyff and Lionel Messi, who is arguably the greatest soccer player of all time. Messi joined Barça at age thirteen and, more than anyone, has been the engine and standard-bearer of Barcelona's glory. But his era is coming to an end--and with it, a once-in-a-lifetime golden run. This book charts Barça's rise and fall.

Like many world-beating organizations, FC Barcelona closely guards its secrets, granting few outsiders access to the Camp Nou, its legendary home stadium. But after decades of writing about the sport and the club, Kuper was given access to the inner sanctum and the people behind the scenes who strive daily to keep Barcelona at the top. Erudite, personal, and capturing all the latest upheavals, his portrait of this incredible institution goes beyond soccer to understand FC Barcelona as a unique social, cultural, and political phenomenon.

Fascinating, rich, and probing . . . a beguiling and endlessly interesting portrait--The Wall Street Journal

For fans of John le Carré and Ben Macintyre, an exclusive first-person account of one of the Cold War's most notorious spies

Kuper provides a different and valuable perspective, humane and informative. If the definition of a psychopath is someone who refuses to accept the consequences of his actions, does George fit the definition? There he sits, admitting it was all for nothing, but has no regrets. Or does he? --John le Carré

Few Cold War spy stories approach the sheer daring and treachery of George Blake's.

After fighting in the Dutch resistance during World War II, Blake joined the British spy agency MI6 and was stationed in Seoul. Taken prisoner after the North Korean army overran his post in 1950, Blake later returned to England to a hero's welcome, carrying a dark secret: while in a communist prison camp in North Korea, he had secretly switched sides to the KGB after reading Karl Marx's Das Kapital.

As a Soviet double agent, Blake betrayed uncounted western spying operations--including the storied Berlin Tunnel, the most expensive covert project ever undertaken by the CIA and MI6. Blake exposed hundreds of western agents, forty of whom were likely executed. After his unmasking and arrest, he received, for that time, the longest sentence in modern British history--only to make a dramatic escape to the Soviet Union in 1966, five years into his forty-two-year sentence. He left his wife, three children, and a stunned country behind.

Much of Blake's career existed inside the hall of mirrors that was the Cold War, especially following his sensational escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison. Veteran journalist Simon Kuper tracked Blake to his dacha outside Moscow, where the aging spy agreed to be interviewed for this unprecedented account of Cold War espionage. Following the master spy's death in Moscow at age ninety-eight on December 26, 2020, Kuper is finally able to set the record straight.

Simon Kuper's New York Times bestseller Soccernomics pioneered a new way of looking at soccer through meticulous empirical analysis and incisive -- and witty -- commentary. Kuper now leaves the numbers and data behind to explore the heart and soul of the world's most popular sport in the new, extraordinarily revealing Soccer Men.

Soccer Men goes behind the scenes with soccer's greatest players and coaches. Inquiring into the genius and hubris of the modern game, Kuper details the lives of giants such as Arsè Wenger, Jose Mourinho, Jorge Valdano, Lionel Messi, Kakàand Didier Drogba, describing their upbringings, the soccer cultures they grew up in, the way they play, and the baggage they bring to their relationships at work.

From one of the great sportswriters of our time, Soccer Men is a penetrating and surprising anatomy of the figures that define modern soccer.

Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once remarked. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that. In this, one of the seminal books on soccer, award-winning sports journalist Simon Kuper explores just how important the beautiful game can be throughout the world. Kuper traveled to 22 countries from Argentina to Cameroon, from Ukraine to the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), from Brazil to South Africa, and from the United States to Spain, to investigate the powerful influence that soccer exerts on politics, culture, and society. The result--part travelogue, part sociopolitical essay--is a fascinating and entertaining chronicle of the complex and secretive plots of ambition and power, of individual and national passions, of the sport's history, and, of course, of the beauty of the world's most popular sport.