How to Watch Soccer Like a Genius

From the author of How to Watch Basketball Like a Genius, a brilliant deconstruction of the most popular sport in the world, publishing ahead of the 2026 World Cup in North America
On the surface, soccer seems like the simplest of games: one ball, two teams, two goals, and (preferably) some grass. There's a reason it's the first team sport little kids learn to play.
But the closer you look, the more you plumb the game's history, the more infinitely complex the picture becomes. Nick Greene, author of the celebrated How to Watch Basketball Like a Genius, is a man who knows how to look closer than most, especially when he pulls in a wide range of experts to help. In How to Watch Soccer Like a Genius, Greene calls on a turf manager, an expert on color theorist, and a landscape historian to understand the field itself, a paleoanthropologist to talk kicking, and an Anglican priest to explain schisms-how American football, soccer, and rugby could all develop from the field games of rowdy 19th century British schoolboys. Greene delves deep into what defines the game, how it developed, and what happens during a match's 90 minutes (and then some). With insight from a domino toppler, a developmental neuroscientist, an art historian, a civil engineer, and more, you'll never look at soccer the same way again.

Nick Greene is a contributing writer for Slate, prior to which he worked as editor at large at Mental Floss and as web editor at the Village Voice. His work has been published in Vice, Men's Health, and Chicago Magazine. He lives in Oakland, California.