Soccer captures the attention of fans around the world—but what are the lives of professional soccer players like behind the scenes? Discover how players prepare for games and learn about the other responsibilities they have when they aren't on the pitch.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then Jeff will begin ... The universally-loved, award-winning host of Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday and Channel 4's Countdown, and author of the bestselling Jelleyman's Thrown a Wobbly, returns with a Jackanory-style, football-flavoured narrative which gathers together the funniest, weirdest, most tragic, most heart-warming, under-the-radar stories of the football season. The book is stuffed to the gunnels with behind-the-scenes revelations, opinions and personal anecdotes from Jeff, and has a strong leaning towards the absurdities of both the highest levels and the grass-roots of the game. From the Macclesfield goalkeeper booked for using a golf tee to take his goal kicks, to the unintelligible ranting and raving of South American dictator chairmen. Let Jeff be your trusted guide through the madness of the football season, and let Jeffanory supply you with a veritable treasure trove of great anecdotes to take to the pub.

October 10, 2017. The U.S. men’s soccer team loses in Trinidad and Tobago, and fails to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Winning soccer’s greatest prize never seemed more distant. Immediate fixes—a new coach, a revamped professional league, a commitment to coaching education—won’t put the USA in the global elite. The nation is too fractious, too litigious, too wrapped up in other sports, and too late to the game. In Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup: A Historical and Cultural Reality Check, Beau Dure shows what American soccer is really up against. Using hundreds of sources to trace more than 100 years of history, Dure delves into the culture that only recently lost its disdain for the global game and still doesn’t have the depth of soccer insight and passion that much of the world has had for generations. The difficulty isn’t any single thing—the mismanagement of failed leagues, the inability to agree on a path forward, the lawsuits that stem from an inability to agree, or the unique American culture that treasures its homegrown sports. It’s everything. And yet, Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup is ultimately optimistic. Dure argues that with the right long-term changes, the U.S. can build a soccer environment that consistently produces quality players, strong results, and a lot more fun on the international stage. Soccer fans and skeptics alike will find this a fascinating examination of America’s past, present, and future in the beautiful game.

“An exhilarating, at times heartbreaking, and ultimately unforgettable journey that lays bare the true human stakes of the world’s most popular game.”—Warren St. John, best-selling author of Outcasts United Searching for soccer’s next superstars, an audacious program called Football Dreams held tryouts for millions of 13-year-old boys across Africa. In The Away Game, Sebastian Abbot follows several of the boys as they chase their dreams in a dizzying world of rich Arab sheikhs, money-hungry agents, and soccer-mad European fans.

On the island of Koh Panyee, in a village built on stilts, there is no open space. How will a group of Thai boys play soccer? After watching the World Cup on television, a group of Thai boys is inspired to form their own team. But on the island of Koh Panyee, in a village built on stilts, there is no open space. The boys can play only twice a month on a sandbar when the tide is low enough. Everything changes when the teens join together to build their very own floating soccer field. This inspiring true story by debut author Scott Riley is gorgeously illustrated by Nguyen Quang and Kim Lien. Perfect for fans of stories about sports, beating seemingly impossible odds, and places and cultures not often shown in picture books. "A compelling book for football [soccer] fans and readers seeking examples of ingenuity."—starred, Publishers Weekly

Roger de Sa is known for having played soccer for major South African Clubs Moroka Swallows and Mamelodi Sundowns, both of which he captained as well. He has also played for Bafana Bafana, was a member of the squad that won the African Cup of Nations in 1996 and played 17 games for the national indoor team. Roger de Sa is his autobiography as told to Ernest Landheer and recounts a story which starts with his destitute family's arrival in South Africa after fleeing from Mozambique in the early seventies. It is a story of success, born in dire poverty and driven by determination and guts, with the primary focus on de Sa's experiences during his soccer carrer, including plenty 'behind-the-scene' anecdotes. With a foreword by Aziz Pahad, who is well known in soccer circles.

Star-Spangled Soccer traces the development of soccer in the USA. It is the first book that tells the story of how the sport rose to extreme highs and suffered almost catastrophic lows as it fought to position itself on the American sports landscape, beginning with the announcement from FIFA in 1988 that America would host the 1994 World Cup.

Readers will learn all about the soccer, including its top stars, i ncredible statistics, and more.

The great footballers and coaches are rarely glimpsed from up close. They shield themselves from the tabloids, hide their personalities behind professionalism, and in the words of the cliché, 'do their talking on the pitch'. This book gets up close to them. The Football Menis not a series of celebrity profiles, and it doesn't attempt to unearth secrets in the players' private lives. Rather, it portrays these men as three-dimensional human beings. It describes their upbringings, the football cultures they grew up in, the way they play, and the baggage that they bring to their relationships at work. This multimillion-pound, multinational world is mostly inhabited by ordinary men. The profiles in this book are sometimes funny, but never breathless or sensational. Some of the profiles in this book are based on interviews; others are the results of time the author spent with that person; sometimes the profile is a story of a country. All are fascinating and shed light on their subject to reveal things you wouldn't expect. From one of the great sports writers of our time this is a penetrating and surprising collection of articles on the figures that have defined the modern sporting world.

Former NFL super agent Tank Black takes you behind the scenes and into the careers and capers of some of the most famous and infamous figures in professional sports.