Soccer

On a July afternoon in 1999, this country's proudest moment in soccer occurred in Pasadena, California. In the presence of more than 90,000 fans and viewed by another 40 million watching on television, the United States women outlasted China to win the World Cup. Though it has lagged far behind in regard to the men's game, the United States was at the forefront when it came to women's soccer.

In The U.S. Women's Soccer Team: An American Success Story, Clemente A. Lisi looks at how the sport has gained popularity over the last couple of decades. While other books have written about the team during a specific year, such as those focused solely on the World Cup win on U.S. soil, Lisi looks beyond this event, detailing the program's infancy and how it steadily became a model for women's teams around the globe.

Beginning with the start of the U.S. program in 1985, Clemente Lisi recounts the development of the women's team, highlighted by their two first place finishes in the Women's World Cups (1991 and 1999) and three Olympic Women's Gold Medals (1996, 2004, and 2008). In addition to chronicling the history of the team as a whole, this book offers mini profiles, as well as photographs, of some of the best players over the years, including Julie Foudy, Amy Rodriguez, Hope Solo, and Mia Hamm.

"Wetherell is a passionate writer who has a sharp, fresh eye."—The New York Times

Writing with the same descriptive flair that has won his novels so much praise, W. D. Wetherell tells the true story of his high-school-age son's winning soccer season. Soccer Dad is simultaneously the candid reflections of a devoted father and the enthusiastic observations of a diehard soccer fan.

When Matt enters his senior year of high school, it is not without myriad parenting concerns on the part of his father, author W. D. Wetherell. What is his role in shaping his son's future? What will life be like when Matt is away at college? And what of Matt's soccer season?—Is Matt's success in soccer just setting him up for disappointment later in life? With the pensive eye of an artist, Wetherell follows his son's team from field to field and win to win and ruminates on topics ranging from soccer's esoteric appeal in America to the conflicting emotions of a parent sending his youngest child out into the world. Reflecting on his own experiences both as a participant and a spectator, Wetherell offers a paean to the sport of soccer and the joys of parenthood.

Getting a yellow card at age eight...snubbing an internationally reknown goalkeeper and having the only bicycle kick he's ever scored called back are just a few of the many hilarious true stories in this collection of short stories, poems and pictures from a lifetime in soccer by Mark Vincent Lincir. He is also the author of THE GIFT OF STOPPAGE TIME and THE WORLD NEEDS MORE BELLY RUBS.

Featuring profiles of Michelle Akers, Joy Fawcett, Carin Gabarra, Mia Hamm, Kristine Luly, and others, this book also covers the evolution of women's soccer, providing a brief history, stats, and more. Photos, many in color.

In this official account of Manchester United's 19th title-winning season, the players bring you inside the dressing room to hear about reaching the Champion's League final and every moment of their Premier League campaign. Manchester United began the 2010-11 season with the longest unbeaten start to a campaign in all competitions in their history, though they also had a couple of surprising slip-ups, dropping points late in matches. However, Dimitar Berbatov was banging in the goals, and Nani was flying down the wing. New arrivals Bebe, Javier Hernandez and Chris Smalling all made early impacts for the Reds. Meanwhile, the negotiations for Wayne Rooney's new contract were played out over the front pages. All this really proved, once again, was that United remained the biggest story in sport. So much, so familiar for Sir Alex Ferguson (who entered his 25th year as manager of the club), who knows all about the pressures of being in charge at the biggest club of them all and making sure that his charges deliver where it really matters: on the pitch. With in-depth contributions from the key members of the squad, and the backroom staff, this book is the definitive account of United's record-breaking 19th league title season.

• ISBN13: 9780316142175
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Women's soccer has never been more popular. At the top of the sport's list of star players is Mia Hamm. Her speed, aggressive play, and ability to "read the field" have sparked every team she's ever played on. At the University of North Carolina, she helped the Tar Heels capture four NCAA championships. Her continually stellar performances with the United States national team led them to win two out of three Women's World Cups, first in 1991 and again in 1999. And as a member of the 1996 gold medal-winning Olympic team, she played an outstanding final game on a sprained ankle. The holder of the world record for most goals scored in a career, she is the hero of thousands of soccer fans worldwide. Readers will devour every detail of this insightful biography of the best women's soccer player in the world. Get an up-close look at this superstar athlete with Matt Christopher, the number one sports series for kids. For more information on the Matt Christopher Sports Bio Bookshelf, please turn to the last pages of this book.

In the States, Nick Hornby is best know as the author of High Fidelity and About a Boy, two wickedly funny novels about being thirtysomething and going nowhere fast. In Britain he is revered for his status as a fanatical football writer (sorry, fanatical soccer writer), owing to Fever Pitch--which is both an autobiography and a footballing Bible rolled into one. Hornby pinpoints 1968 as his formative year--the year he turned 11, the year his parents separated, and the year his father first took him to watch Arsenal play. The author quickly moved "way beyond fandom" into an extreme obsession that has dominated his life, loves, and relationships. His father had initially hoped that Saturday afternoon matches would draw the two closer together, but instead Hornby became completely besotted with the game at the expense of any conversation: "Football may have provided us with a new medium through which we could communicate, but that was not to say that we used it, or what we chose to say was necessarily positive." Girlfriends also played second fiddle to one ball and 11 men. He fantasizes that even if a girlfriend "went into labor at an impossible moment" he would not be able to help out until after the final whistle.

Fever Pitch is not a typical memoir--there are no chapters, just a series of match reports falling into three time frames (childhood, young adulthood, manhood). While watching the May 2, 1972, Reading v. Arsenal match, it became embarrassingly obvious to the then 15-year-old that his white, suburban, middle-class roots made him a wimp with no sense of identity: "Yorkshire men, Lancastrians, Scots, the Irish, blacks, the rich, the poor, even Americans and Australians have something they can sit in pubs and bars and weep about." But a boy from Maidenhead could only dream of coming from a place with "its own tube station and West Indian community and terrible, insoluble social problems."

Fever Pitch reveals the very special intricacies of British football, which readers new to the game will find astonishing, and which Hornby presents with remarkable humor and honesty--the "unique" chants sung at matches, the cold rain-soaked terraces, giant cans of warm beer, the trains known as football specials carrying fans to and from matches in prisonlike conditions, bottles smashing on the tracks, thousands of policemen waiting in anticipation for the cargo of hooligans. The sport and one team in particular have crept into every aspect of Hornby's life--making him see the world through Arsenal-tinted spectacles. --Naomi Gesinger