Christoph Biermann has written a book about football that is both unusual and intriguing. In search of the perfect game, he and top football coach Felix Magath compare football with chess, he immerses himself in the world of football data and visits AC Milan’s mysterious laboratory. He talks to Lionel Messi about computer games, and meets an economist who wants to make football a predictable sport.
Football is the best game because it’s so simple. But at the same time, its possibilities are endless and in recent years it has become the subject of more and more research. Football has undergone a digital revolution and been invaded by scientists. The game has become faster, strategically more sophisticated and more exciting. This book describes the current state of football and penetrates the outer limits of the new football science.
The reader finds out why the real art of football lies in the attack, and how this is best learnt. Biermann explains how to score a penalty, why the three-point rule has made football more defensive, and how clubs can avoid making serious transfer mistakes. The reader will have to distance himselve from traditional opinions but in the ever-present discussions about football he learns to give smarter responses to why victories and defeats have occurred.
Christoph Biermann has been one of Germany’s most distinguished football journalists for many years. In his articles and books, he always finds new aspects of the sport to explain to his readers. He examined the world of fans when they still had a bad reputation, and he described the development of football tactics, when “back four” in Germany was still a contentious term. The Football matrix also breaks new ground. But what sometimes sounds like science fiction today will soon be a matter of course everywhere in the football world.
