The Numbers Game Quotes

“For all the enlightened nations that profess a loyalty to liberty, democracy, economy and all the rest, there has long been a readiness to look for a chosen one; as Carlyle pointed out, even the French, those great anti-venerators, those relentless beheaders of Great Men, worshipped Voltaire.”
― Chris Anderson, The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong

“It turns out that clean sheets on average produce almost 2.5 points per match, as Figure 25 reveals. Compared to scoring a goal, which on average earns a team about one point per match, not conceding is more than twice as valuable. And even conceding only one goal still gives a team around 1.5 points on average, about 30 percent more in value than scoring one.”
― Chris Anderson, The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong

“Bernoulli’s basic rule is this: if you do something for long enough, every possible outcome will occur.”
― Chris Anderson, The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong

“Tactics are not the same as strategy. Your strategy is what you plan to do over the entire season. Your tactics are what you do to get you there in the course of an individual game. To fulfill your strategy, you must get your tactics right; and your tactics must always fit your team and your opponent.”
― Chris Anderson, The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong

“That is what makes soccer special, and what makes soccer what it is. It takes so much effort to score that each goal is celebrated that little bit more joyously, and means that little bit more. That is why the game is so exciting. Any one goal, at any time in the game, can be the difference between victory and defeat, between delight and despair. The goal is soccer’s beauty, and she’s a rare and reluctant beauty indeed.”
― Chris Anderson, The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong

“Games like the Football Manager series have reduced what was once seen as a special skill possessed only by a few to little more than an algorithm for success.”
― Chris Anderson, The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong

“His most famous quote is even simpler. It is so obvious that if anyone else had said it they may have been mocked. Having a World Cup on your résumé tends to help avoid such a fate. ‘The ball,’ Herberger used to say, ‘is round.”
― Chris Anderson, The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Football is Wrong