Soccernomics - Has anyone ever read it

I'm going to buy it soon. Read a bit and couldn't put it down for a second.

theaguia wrote:

free_cat wrote:I'm reading the book right now. Has some interesting points, but they also contracdict theirselves quite a lot, and somethings are nonesense.

Eg of contradictions:
They first mention the importance of football culture, networking and connections in Western Europe, later they claim that managers influence, except some geniuses (Shankly and Clough) is almost null.

They mention that wages explain the performance of the teams, while saying that transfers don't, while avoiding to see that if you don't pay a transfer in most cases you can't get better players that earn more wages.

i think about transfer wages they are talking abt the actual importance of wages, they are saying yes you cant get good players if you cant pay the transfer fee for them, but the most important aspect is the wages they wont play good unless you give them decent wages no matter how expensive the player was. i think it says that sometimes you rather pay more wages to your player raather than buying a player if you want to increase the performance

No, the logic behind the wages, and they explain it very clear, is that the teams that pays the most wages tend to do good because they have the better players.

It is obviously not possible to improve a player's performance just paying him more, he won't become faster, better dribler or shooter because he earns more.

=dude a basic economic factor, a more motivation = more productivity.

you underestimate the power of money it really brings out the best in people.

i do agree they wont become better in terms of ability but wages can improve their concentration, determination mental strength, aggressiveness, discpline and most importantly motivation to do well and train harder. if you pay them enough that is.

theaguia wrote:=dude a basic economic factor, a more motivation = more productivity.

you underestimate the power of money it really brings out the best in people.

i do agree they wont become better in terms of ability but wages can improve their concentration, determination mental strength, aggressiveness, discpline and most importantly motivation to do well and train harder. if you pay them enough that is.

Yeah, more pay it can bring more motivation. But that's not the point made in the book, and let's be serious, you won't turn Charlie Adam into a Xavi Hernandez by paying him the same money. Motivation is only a small percentage of performance. Furthermore, it's been proved repeatedly by economical studies that motivation due to a pay-rise tends to fade in some months.

As a motivation tool, it is much more usefull to link a share of the salary to the performance. A share big enough to keep players motivated all season long as they want to earn that extra bonus. Barça under Laporta used to do that awarding around 20% of the salary in bonus pay from titles. I think they still do, but I'm not sure.

we may be going off topic for it is not mentioned in the book but my view is that motivation means alot. Look at tevez he says he wants to go, but he keeps performing because of his pay rise. i mean after they increased his salry his performance somehow went up. that is what i am talking abt. In terms of a economists view they effect may fade, but then you can keep on increasing his wages even though it sounds stupid, but i am talking in theoretical terms not practical ones.

bonus is always agood motivator, but what abt the squad player who might not be able to play the required matches to win the bonus, or play well when everything is won?

a big aspect of using wages to motivate players is that they feel guilt and pride(ego). those are powerful motivators

Read soccernomics. Interesting book, I recommend it to football fans, although it basically takes out any interest (more than interest, passion) in national football, to the extent that basically comes to say that in future the countries with the most population and rich enough will always win (US, Japan, germany, China).

I wonder, why doesn't the book analyze the Brasilian case? It is always mentioned and singled out like the country that brakes all the explanations and models, but they never explain how they do it or anything in a detailed way. Or do they and I missed the chapter??

free_cat wrote:

chinomaster182 wrote:

JuvenelCuore wrote:

theaguia wrote:found it

Mind posting it ? Wouldn't mind uploading it to my Kobo to bring to the cottage tomorrow and have a read by the lake.

Judging by your posts, you would be flipped out about it, i highly recommend you read it.

It basically contradicts you on all your points of view, like youth players. Again, i highly recommend you read the book.

Just curious, in what does the book contradict JuvenelCuore posts?

+1. How ?

And I am thinking of starting this soon after dinner, I have not got around to it yet.

Another good read, not to derail this thread:

Has anyone read the book?

Another big contradiction the book has. At one point they state that athletic abilities are mostly interchangable between sports until you are a late teenager. Later, they quote the 10.000 hours rule, saying that you need a lot of practice to become a master of anything, and it's true for a sport either.