Thoughtful Soccer

A truly innovative model for coaching and playing soccer in which the thought side of the game is as important as the skills and players begin thinking early in their development. The key to the Thoughtful Soccer picture is unpredictability. Players might pass, shoot or dribble. They might move the ball forward, back or to the side. And they might attack quickly or advance the ball patiently. Observers, as well as opponents, cannot predict what is going to happen. That is what makes Thoughtful Soccer so enjoyable to watch. Perfect for both new and experienced coaches and players, this unique method will benefit teams at all levels of the game. Book jacket.

From the FIFA World Cup to pick-up games at your local park, soccer is the closest thing in our world to a universal entertainment. Many writers use this global popularity to describe the game’s winners and losers, but what happens when we use social science to explore how soccer intersects with culture, society, and the self? This book provides a thinking fan’s guide to the world’s most popular game, proposing a way of engaging soccer that sparks intellectual curiosity and employs critical consciousness. Using stories and data, along with ideas from sociology, psychology, and across the social sciences, it provides readers with new ways of understanding fanaticism, peak performance, talent development, and more. Drawing on concepts ranging from cognitive bias to globalization, it illuminates meanings of the game for players and fans while investigating impacts on our lives and communities. While it considers soccer cultures across the globe, the book also analyzes what makes U.S. soccer culture special, including its embrace of the women’s game. As a scholar, former minor league player and coach, and fan, Andrew Guest offers a distinctive perspective on soccer in society. Whatever name you call it, and whatever your interest in it, Soccer in Mind will enrich your own view of the one truly global game.

The authors look at soccer disasters across the globe from air crashes to overcrowding. The causes, consequences and legacies are explored in this book which reveals frightening parallels and important lessons.

Passionate Soccer Love: A Memoir of 20 Years Supporting US Soccer chronicles the travels of Tanya Keith through seven World Cups and beyond. Her stories are funny, entertaining, and will enthrall readers with her perseverance, passion, and dreams. Experience the history and camaraderie of American Soccer supporter culture as you get to know her soccer family. Through tales of soccer adventure, Ms. Keith shows how her contagious passion has paved the way for her dreams to become reality and how following your passion can bring balance between love and life, business and family. Praise for Passionate Soccer Love: Tanya Keith has been traveling to U.S. soccer games since 1993, including seven World Cups, and her highly readable book is a revealing (and fun) window into the adventurous life of a hardcore U.S. fan and her family. The growth of U.S. supporter culture is one of the great stories in American sports, and Keith has been there to see it all. I couldnt put this book down. Grant Wahl, Sports Illustrated - Senior Writer, Fox Sports Television, SiriusXM FC Channel 94 Tanya Keith is someone who lives out and embodies each of the words in the title of her book, Passionate Soccer Loveindividually and collectively. With humor and grace, she weaves entertaining and heartfelt stories of her two families, the one with her husband and children, and the other her soccer family, which, like her support for the U.S. mens national team, has no bounds. If, like her, youve fallen so hard and so deep for soccer, and appreciate the struggles and joys of familyon the field and offyoull see yourself in the pages of her book. Passionate Soccer Love is a highly worthy and recommended addition to the bookshelf of any soccer fan. Jimmy LaRoue, The Daily Advance

Soccer is a vital part of the Middle East’s cultural and political fabric, most recently demonstrated by the way the recent successes of the Iraqi national team suggested possibilities of unity and solidarity. This edited collection explores the multifaceted connections between soccer and society in the Middle East. It examines the broader social significance of soccer and its importance to individual lives, how the game acts as a source of both conflict and unity and how it relates to religious belief. The chapters in this volume include an analysis of the role of ‘African’ identity in the Egyptian and Moroccan bids to host the 2010 World Cup, the relationship between FIFA and Palestinian statehood and a case-study examination of the UltrAslan, an organisation of Galatasaray fans, that challenges Turkish fandom’s violent and nationalistic reputation. The themes of this book are also addressed through the perspective of individual accounts and literary selections. This collection offers a crucial insight into the hope that soccer can provide, how it captures the imagination and embodies the values and dreams of its followers in the complex, dynamic and politically fraught societies of the Middle East. This book was originally published as a special issue of Soccer & Society.

A comprehensive guide to teaching essential soccer skills to players ages eight to 12. 120 illustrations.