AS THE eight remaining World Cup teams prepare for their quarterfinal ties this weekend, we fans can also take a moment to breathe (and hopefully catch up on some sleep).
I've managed to squeeze in a few hours of reading in the precious downtime of these last couple of weeks. But of course I can't steer too far away from the subject on everybody's mind.
I just finished reading a book published last year called Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey — and Even Iraq — are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport.
(That's a mouthful, and it's also the title of the American release. The British version, released two months earlier, is more simply titled Why England Lose: And other curious phenomena explained.)
Written by acclaimed sports columnist Simon Kuper of the Financial Times and "sports economist" Stefan Szymanski, it takes a hard statistical look at the validity of some of the received wisdom in global soccer. And as both titles suggest, the book may offer some solace — or at least an explanation — for England fans distraught at their team's 4-1 mauling by Germany this week.
The authors argue that England is not, in fact, an underachiever on the global stage. If anything, the team punches above its weight. Taking into account the country's population, international experience and national income, the authors conclude that England performs just about as well as it should be expected to.
Other factors play into England's middling results, as well. For example, the shrinking of England's traditional working class, from which much of the talent for the national side has historically been drawn, has duly limited the number of available recruits.
England's geographical isolation from continental Europe (in the years before the internet became ubiquitous, anyway) has also deprived the country access to the network of innovation that has enabled mainland countries to thrive.
As Mr Kuper wrote in a recent column for the FT: "England at this World Cup have often demonstrated their ancestral tendency to revert to blind kick-and-rush football. Many fans wish the national team would master the continental style."
England fans might not agree with all that's in this book. Indeed, much of it seems intended to stir as much debate as it settles.
Some of the more intriguing — and debatable — points include the notion that Norway is, in fact, the country that is the most in-love with the beautiful game and that, person-for-person and dollar-for-dollar, Honduras and Iraq may be the best national teams in the world.
I personally have already used the book to settle (in my mind) one of the great debates of the global game. As an American, I've always called and continue to call the game "soccer", a word grating to so many British and European ears. And yet, on page 158 of my copy of the book, straight from the mouth of an Englishman, I found this passage (emphasis mine):
"At this point, let's agree to call the global game 'soccer' and the American game 'football.' Many people, both in America and in Europe, imagine that soccer is an American term invented in the late twentieth century to distinguish the game from gridiron. Indeed, anti-American Europeans often frown on the use of the word. They consider it a mark of American imperialism. This is a silly position. 'Soccer' was the most common name for the game in Britain from the 1890s until the 1970s. As far as one can tell, when the North American Soccer League brought soccer to the Americans in the 1970s, and Americans quite reasonably adopted the English word, the British stopped using it and reverted to the word football."
I showed that to an England fan late one night in a pub after he started chiding me for using the S-word. He fell silent after that, unsure how to rebut. Then again, maybe it was England's dismal performance against Algeria that night that left him reticent.
Either way, Mr Kuper's and Mr Szymanski's book will challenge many of the conceptions soccer fans hold as gospel. It may even help you win a few barroom debates.