Celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Union of European Football Associations Champions League with this handsome history, including new interviews and a stats section The UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Champions League celebrated its diamond jubilee in 2005. The first match was played on September 4, 1955, when Sporting Lisbon played Partizan Belgrade. The Yugoslavs advanced to the next round by winning 8-5 on aggregate, but lost to the eventual champions, Real Madrid, giving the first glimmering of the Spanish club's legendary status. Real have won the Champion Clubs Cup/UEFA Champions League (the name changed in 1992) 10 times, three more successes than their nearest rival, Milan. Fully updated, this book covers every season's competition with a full report and statistical summary of the Final up to, and including, the 2015 final in Berlin. There are specially commissioned interviews with a soccer legend from each decade from the 1950s to the present. The book also includes a full statistical section, listing every result and all major record-holders, both club and individual.

The Britannica Book of the Year 2009 provides a valuable veiwpoint of the people and events that shaped the year and serves as a great reference source for the latest news on the ever changing populations, governments, and economies throughout the world. It is an accurate and comprehensive reference that you will reach for again and again.

Italy is a country that exercises a hold on the imagination of people all over the world. Its long history has left an inexhaustible treasure chest of cultural achievement: Historic cities such as Rome, Florence, and Venice are among the most sought-after destinations in the world for tourists and art lovers. Italy's natural beauty and cuisine are rightly renowned. It’s history and politics are also a source of endless fascination. Modern Italy has consistently been a political laboratory for the rest of Europe. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Modern Italy contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Italy.

The Historical Dictionary of Soccer presents a comprehensive history of the game through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, numerous appendixes that list everything from the FIFA World Player of the Year to FIFA World Cup Winners and Runners-Up to the UEFA Ch...

'A gold mine for football fans and collectors.' – Dan Keane, Sport Cards UK 'If you're a fan of classic football history and football stickers, get your hands on one.' – Paolo Panini PANINI'S GREATEST FOOTBALL STICKER STARS IN ONE AMAZING BOOK 'Got, got, need', 'swapsies' and 'shinies' PANINI LEGENDS showcases in sticker form 85 of the most-celebrated players in men's and women's football. Icons like Pelé, Diego Maradona, Franz Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore are present, of course, but they share the limelight with modern stars such as Lionel Messi, Marta, Kylian Mbappé, Cristiano Ronaldo and Alexia Putellas. Written by respected sticker authority Greg Lansdowne, the book features stickers from a host of domestic leagues and all the major international tournaments, expertly selected from over 60 years' worth of albums. – Which players made the PANINI album but didn't play? – Who never missed a season as a sticker? – Whose rookie – a player's first sticker – is most sought after? Inside the book: – More than 900 iconic PANINI stickers from the domestic and international football competitions – Extended career profiles of the greatest players to grace PANINI albums – PANINI stickers showing kits of some of world's most famous football teams

Whether you want to bend it like Beckham or dribble like Ronaldinho, The Soccer Book is the ultimate visual guide to soccer skills, rules, tactics, and coaching, illustrating every aspect of every variant of the sport more clearly, and in more detail, than any other book has done before.

Cast your mind back to the mid-1990s. The Premiership was shiny and new, England weren't terrible at football, and exciting foreign players like Gianfranco Zola, Eric Cantona and Georgi Kinkladze were lighting up our game. In an industrial town in the north-east of England, a little Brazilian magic was the catalyst to thrust a previously provincial, middle-of-the-road club into the full glare of the global footballing spotlight. The Little Fella: How Middlesbrough Fell in Love with Juninho is the story of Juninho Paulista and his three-act association with Middlesbrough, culminating in the League Cup win of 2004, which today still remains Boro's only major trophy. It examines the World Cup winner's part in a rollercoaster 1996/97 season, which saw Boro lose two cup finals and end up being relegated; to the redemptive, triumphant 2003/04 season. With contributions from some of Boro's other star names of a golden period, such as Fabrizio Ravanelli, Emerson, Gaizka Mendieta and Gareth Southgate, The Little Fella attempts to translate into words the magic football fans witnessed on the pitch during those heady days.

Sixty Years a Red... and Counting! is a unique, affectionate, fun and frank account of Liverpool FC over 60 years from the perspective of a dedicated fan and informed observer of Anfield life. From attending his first game at Anfield in 1961, to watching the Kop sing and sway as the Reds plotted a triumphant course through the 1960s and early 70s under Bill Shankly, to league title glory with Bob Paisley and lifting the European Cup three times, Brian Barwick saw it all. In his role as the FA's chief executive, he was in Istanbul for that unforgettable Champions League final. And like thousands of others he punched the air in his front room when the Reds finally lifted the Premier League trophy in 2020. As a journalist and broadcaster, he gained special insight into Liverpool's triumphs while building a rapport with some of the club's top personalities. This book takes you behind the scenes at Anfield to tell the story of Liverpool's rise from Second Division mediocrity to becoming one of the most recognisable names in world sport.

A compelling examination of football club ownership in the era of the super-rich Once upon a time football was run by modest local businessmen. Today it is the plaything of billionaire oligarchs, staggeringly wealthy from oil and gas, from royalty, or from murkier sources. But who are these new masters of the universe? Where did all their money come from? And what do they want with our beautiful game? While almost cloaked in secrecy, the billionaire owner has to raise his head above the bunker when it comes to football ownership – a rare Achilles heel that allows access to worlds normally off limits journalists and outsiders. In the Billionaires Club James Montague delves deeper than anyone ever dared, to tell this story for the first time. He criss-crosses the world – from Dhaka to Doha, from China to Crewe, from St Louis to London, from Bangkok to Belgium – to profile this new elite, their network of money and their influence that defies geographic boundaries. The Billionaires Club is part history of club ownership, part in-depth investigation into the money and influence that connects the super-rich around the globe, and part travel book as he follows the ever-shifting trail around the globe in an attempt to reveal the real force behind modern-day football. At its heart The Billionaires Club is a football book, about some of the biggest clubs in the world. But it is also about something bigger: the world around us, the global economy, where the world is headed and how football has become an essential cog in this machine. The book discusses the dawn European Super League, and the repercussions for the future of the game.