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The away game : the epic search for soccer's next superstars / Sebastian Abbot

by Abbot, Sebastian.

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W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Aspire Football Dreams (Program)

Soccer players -- Training of -- Qatar.

Soccer players -- Recruiting -- Africa.

9780393292206 (hc.)

xx, 284 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index

Boys -- The tornado -- The skipper -- The target -- Trainees -- The academy -- Final tryout -- Sent off -- Brothers -- Glory and shame -- The milk cup -- Pros -- Battle of Belgium -- Miracle land -- Only the beginning

"Over the past decade, an audacious program called Football Dreams has held tryouts for millions of 13-year-old boys across Africa looking for soccer's next superstars. Led by the Spanish scout who helped launch Lionel Messi's career at Barcelona and funded by the desert kingdom of Qatar, the program has chosen a handful of boys each year to train to become professionals - a process over a thousand times more selective than getting into Harvard. Reporter Sebastian Abbot follows a small group of the boys as they are discovered on dirt fields across Africa, join the glittering academy in Doha where they train, and compete for the chance to gain fame and fortune at Europe's top clubs. Abbot weaves together the story of the boys' journey with an exploration of the art and science of trying to spot talent at such a young age. As in so many other sports, data analytics in soccer have expanded, with scouts employing sophisticated metrics and tracking data to judge players. But, soccer genius depends more on intangible qualities like "game intelligence" than on easily quantifiable ones. The Away Game is set against the geopolitical backdrop of Qatar's rise from an impoverished patch of desert to an immensely rich nation determined to buy a place on the international stage. The story of the joy and pain these talented African boys experience as they chase their dreams in a dizzying world of rich Arab sheikhs, money-hungry agents, and soccer-mad European fans. Sebastian Abbot worked for the Associated Press in Cairo and Islamabad"--Provided by publisher.

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