I received the new book Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Plaued and Games are Won and finished reading it last week, so here’s my review for those of you statistics-addicted junkies out there.
I’ve got to start off by saying that while I am almost exclusively a footie fan – through my various work, educational, personal, and travel experiences – I am also interested in the statistics and stories / debates around other sports as well like basketball – so the book “sucked me in” from the start whereas a majority of our readers (if you are EXCLUSIVELY footie fans) may be a bit disappointed by the distinct lack of soccer examples and lack of chapters devoted to our most beautiful game.
Nevertheless, Scorecasting includes a fascinating section on the significance of home field advantage in club soccer leagues around Europe, and the world, as well as a really interesting study about refereeing bias in footie: how much extra time is added at the end of the game when the score is tied versus when a team is leading by 1 goal, or when a team clearly has a lopsided 2+ goal lead and how does this lengthening or shortening of games affect the outcome?
Really cool stuff. And I’m sure the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson and Phil Dowd would be shocked by some of the findings…
The two authors are life-long friends since summer camp when they were kids – one is a Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, and the other a Senior Writer at Sports Illustrated – so you can’t really go wrong with the brainpower on offer, or the writing style.
The book really gets into the nitty gritty, the detail, the statistical minutia – so if you have a background that is prone to math, statistics, or the science of human behavior, you’ll find this a superb read, soccer fan or not.
The book reveals some of the true hidden forces that shape the way basketball, baseball, football and hockey games are played, won, and lost. A great gift for the addicted, general American sports fan.
While it may stray away from our “core competency” here at Never Captain Nicky Butt- which is of course, soccer, I still recommend Scorecasting as a fascinating academic sports book with some very novel findings.
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