
Soccer Men by Simon Kuper
In 2009, journalist Simon Kuper drew wide attention with the publication of Soccernomics, co-written with economist Stefan Szymanski, which explored the ways statistical analysis could explain the odd phenomena of the beautiful game. His timing was impeccable: In the last few years, as companies like Opta have refined their ability to extract quantifiable information from soccer’s fluid choreography, the world’s top clubs have turned to statisticians to help edge out the competition. North London’s Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger is a pioneer of this strategy, and Italy’s AC Milan deploys it in