Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Part I Focus
Chapter 1 Having Your Mind Right 9
Chapter 2 In the Blink of an Eye 21
Chapter 3 Choking and the Yips 35
Part II Rules
Chapter 4 Professional Fouls and Political Obligation 53
Chapter 5 Morality, Convention, and Soccer Fakery 63
Chapter 6 Cads of the Most Unscrupulous Kidney 75
Part III Teams
Chapter 7 The Logic of Fandom 93
Chapter 8 Sporting Teams, Spacetime Worms, and Israeli Soccer 103
Chapter 9 Mutualism and the Art of Road Cycle Racing 115
Chapter 10 Game Theory and Team Reasoning 131
Part IV Tribes
Chapter 11 Civil Society and Sporting Eligibility 147
Chapter 12 Sporting Nations and Political Geography 161
Chapter 13 Race, Ethnicity, and joining the Club 175
Chapter 14 Nature, Nurture, and Sporting Families 187
Part V Values
Chapter 15 Amateur Values and Ulterior Motives 201
Chapter 16 The Coase Theorem and Sporting Capitaism 211
Chapter 17 History, Tradition, and the Meaning of Football 221
Chapter 18 Shankly, Chomsky, and the Nature of Sport 233
Soporific Postscript 249
Acknowledgments 251
Notes and Further Reading 255
Index 271