This book is a collection of articles on the philosophy of soccer from around the World. I was disappointed with the majority of the articles as they bordered on the ridiculous. Some of the authors actually put some effort into their writing and touched on some very good topics, but I had to skip over a number of articles as they were ludicrous. They covered topics like, why Nietzsche would be an Arsenal fan if he was alive today, or Plato would be a Chelsea fan, or whether Aristotle would have admired the beauty of the modern game? To me these questions are whimsical and subject to opinion, and have no real relevance to philosophy at all.
However, there were other articles that I found inspiring, or thought provoking; such as, what defines soccer? or Why do weaker teams sometimes beat stronger teams, and therefore, is the game itself flawed? Can robots eventually play soccer better than humans? Is Maradona's "Hand of God" goal, really a miracle? What is the definition of luck? And does luck have a place in soccer? Is the penalty shoot out flawed, and therefor immoral? All of these questions were very good, but the editor needed to do a better job of weeding out poor articles and keeping the good ones.