Football Books

Football/Soccer books I’ve reviewed ranked (roughly) from best to not-as-good.

1. ‘Football Against the Enemy’ by Simon Kuper (1994)
2. ‘Garrincha: the triumph and tragedy of Brazilian’s forgotten footballing hero’ by Ruy Castro & translated by Andrew Downie (2004)
3. ‘Full Time: The Secret Life Of Tony Cascarino’ by Paul Kimmage (2000)
4. ‘The Miracle of Castel di Sangro’ by Joe McGinniss (2000)
5. ‘Puskas on Puskas: The Life and Times of a Footballing Legend’ edited by Rogan Taylor and Klara Jamrich (1997)
6. ‘The Barcelona Legacy: Guardiola, Mourinho and the Fight For Football’s Soul’ by Jonathan Wilson (2018)
7. ‘Days of Heaven: Italia 90 and the Charlton Years’ by Declan Lynch (2010)
8. ‘Fergie Rises: How Britain’s Greatest Football Manager was Made at Aberdeen’ by Michael Grant (2014)
9. ‘Kaiser: The Greatest Footballer Never To Play Football’ by Rob Smyth (2018)
10. ‘The Billionaires Club: The Unstoppable Rise of Football’s Super-rich Owners’ by James Montague (2017)
11. One career, Two books – Roy Keane (2002 and 2014).
12. ‘Barça: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World’ by Graham Hunter (2012)
13. One Career, Two Books – Tony Adams. Addicted (1999) and Sober (2017) written with Ian Ridley
14. ‘Klopp: Bring the Noise’ by Raphael Honigstein (2017)
15. ‘Lionel Messi and the Art of Living’ by Andy West (2018)
16. ‘Soccernomics – 2018 World Cup edition’ by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski (2018)
17. ‘El Macca: Four Years with Real Madrid’ by Steve McManaman and Sarah Edworthy (2004)
18. ‘How to be a Footballer’ by Peter Crouch (2018)
19. ‘The European Game: An Adventure to Explore Football on the Continent and its Methods for Succes’ by Dan Fieldsend (2017)
20. ‘Gazza in Italy’ by Daniel Story (2018)
21. ‘Andy’s Game: The Inside Story of the World Cup’ by Andy Townsend with Paul Kimmage (1994)
22. The Beckham Experiment: How the World’s Most Famous Athlete Tried to Conquer America (2009) by Grant Wahl
23. ‘Hijacking LaLiga: How Atlético Madrid Broke Barcelona and Real Madrid’s Duopoloy on Spanish Football’ by Euan McTear (2018)
24. ‘Red: My Autobiography’ by Gary Neville (2011)
25. ‘Keeper Of Dreams: One Man’s Controversial Story of Life in the English Premiership’ by Ronald Reng & translated by Shaun Whiteside (2002)
26. ‘Bayern: Creating a Global Superclub’ by Uli Hesse (2016)
27. ‘My Turn’ by Johan Cruyff (2016)
28. ‘Tackled: The Class of ’92 Star Who Never Got to Graduate’ by Ben Thornley & Dan Poole (2018)
29. ‘The Gaffers: Mick Mc Carthy, Roy Keane And The Team They Built’ by Paul Howard (2002)
30.  ‘The Team That Jack Built’ by Paul Rowan (1994)
31. ‘No Hunger in Paradise: The Players. The Journey. The Dream.’ by Michael Calvin (2017)
32. ‘Brave New World: Inside Pochettino’s Spurs’ by Guillem Balague (2018)
33. ‘The Binman Chronicles’ by Neville Southall (2012)
34. ‘Mental – Bad Behaviour, Ugly Truths and the Beautiful Game’ by Jermaine Pennant with John Cross (2018)
35. ‘Where have all the Irish gone? The sad demise of Ireland’s once relevant footballers’ by Kevin O’Neill (2017)
36. Frankly Speaking by Frank Stapleton (1991)
37. ‘The Man Who Saved F.C. Barcelona: The Remarkable Life of Patrick O’Connell’ by Sue O’Connell (2016)
38. ‘Touched By God: How We Won the Mexico 86 World Cup’ by Diego Maradona (2017)
39. ‘The Deal: Inside the World of a Super-Agent’ by Jon Smith & James Olley (2016)