Sports Biographies Football

Despite debuting on Canada’s senior national soccer team 20 years ago, scarce is known of Atiba Hutchinson. We’ve watched him win Canadian Men’s Player of the Year six times; celebrated his club team championships; and mourned his injuries. We’ve lamented the state of Canadian soccer and cursed the lost potential—and years. Yet, we know little about Atiba’s personal life, or how he rose from suburban Brampton to becoming Canada’s most-capped national men’s team player, often described as the country’s greatest athlete you haven’t heard about.

Beth Mead is one of the world's most talented female footballers - Golden Boot winner and Player of the Tournament at the UEFA Euros 2022, Arsenal Player of the Season 2021-22, and nominee for the 2022 Ballon d'Or. But long before this, Beth was just an ordinary kid from Hinderwell, North Yorkshire who wanted to play football.

From a New York Times best-selling author, the definitive biography of the NFL’s most enigmatic, controversial, and yet successful coach, Bill Belichick. Veteran sports writer and award-winning author Ian O’Connor delves into the mind of the man who has earned a place among coaching legends like Lombardi, Halas, and Paul Brown, presenting sides of Belichick that have previously been unexplored. O’Connor discovers how this legendary coach shaped the people he met and worked with in ways perhaps even Belichick himself doesn’t know.

When Pride Still Mattered is the quintessential story of the American family: how Vince Lombardi, the son of an immigrant Italian butcher, rose to the top, and how his character and will to prevail transformed him, his wife, his children, his players, his sport, and ultimately the entire country.

Pep Guardiola is the most successful and sought after football coach in the world. After being appointed first-team manager in 2008, he transformed Barcelona into arguably the greatest club side of all time, winning an unprecedented 13 trophies in four years. Following a shock sabbatical from the game, he replaced Jupp Heynckes at the helm of Bayern Munich at the start of the 2013-14 season, twice winning the Double in his three years in charge.

For the Anfield faithful, Jamie Carragher represents everything that is great about Liverpool Football Club, prompting the Kop to sing 'we all dream of a team of Carraghers'. The club's vice-captain, longest-serving player and one of a select band of players to have made more than 500 appearances for the Reds, Carra never gives less than 100 per cent for the cause. He is the embodiment of old-fashioned football values - a rarity in the modern game - honest and uncompromising. The Liverpool defender takes us deep into the heart of Anfield.

Hall of Fame football coach Jimmy Johnson’s house isn’t on the way to anything. Yet, his private sanctuary on the Florida Keys’ Islamorada islands is a popular destination to which college and professional coaches, general managers, and team owners regularly trek to seek advice—how to build a positive team culture, draft elite players, balance work and family life, and lead a team to win. Why? Because Jimmy Johnson has done it all. Now, written with sports journalist Dave Hyde, Johnson shares a candid account of his life experiences that have turned him into a legend in the coaching world.

In July 2021, shortly after being named League Two's Player of the Season and Golden Boot, Paul Mullin sent shockwaves through the EFL by taking a downwards move to National League team, Wrexham AFC. Since then, 'Super Paul Mullin' has helped transform the Wrexham team, scoring dozens of goals and capturing the imaginations of football fans across the world in the process. Here for the first time, Mullin tells his own story: his roots in Liverpool, the highs and lows of English football's promotion race, lessons learnt from his young son, and what happens when Hollywood comes knocking.

From New York Times best-selling author Lars Anderson comes a revealing portrait of the first family of American sports. What the Kennedys are to politics, the Mannings are to football. Two generations have produced three NFL superstars: Archie Manning, the Ole Miss hero-turned-New Orleans Saint; his son Peyton, widely considered one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game; and Peyton's younger brother, Eli, who won two Super Bowl rings of his own.

As plans for the 2020 NFL season ramped up and daily cases of Covid-19 continued to skyrocket, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, a fixture on the offensive line of the Kansas City Chiefs, stepped away from the game he loved. Not only an active player but also a medical school graduate, Laurent withdrew when he realized that continuing to play—and potentially spreading the virus—was antithetical to everything he believed in.

The inspiring memoir of one of football's greatest players - Steph Houghton - in which she recounts the highs and lows of making it to the top of her game as England Captain, star of the London Olympics, and Man City stalwart, via Sunderland, Leeds and Arsenal. With 121 caps for the Lionesses, Steph has been at the heart of the women's football revolution, inspiring girls and young women around the world but in her own understated way.

On 27th February 2022, after 170 matches in charge, promotion to the Premier League and some of the most exhilarating football the English game has ever seen, Leeds United parted company with their most beloved and successful manager in a generation: Marcelo Bielsa. His parting gift was to embrace the crowds of adoring fans who turned up to say thank you as he left the club's training ground for the final time.

Jeanne Marie Laskas first met the young forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2009, while reporting a story for GQ that would go on to inspire the movie Concussion. Omalu told her about a day in September 2002, when, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, he picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he’d never intended. Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria.

John Madden is synonymous with football. He was the television face and voice of the nation’s most popular sport, the namesake of its best-selling sports video game, and the man with the highest career winning percentage of any NFL coach. Despite his international fame, there was a side of Madden known only to those who listened to morning radio broadcasts in the San Francisco Bay Area. That’s where Madden grew up, lived, and died. It's where for decades he found joy in a daily chat with his hometown radio station: a chance to unwind, tell stories, and impart his own brand of wit and wisdom.

For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever - a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city. It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won but how they did it....

Nate Ebner and his father were inseparable. From an early age, they worked side-by-side in the family junkyard. Even though Nate was a great peewee football player in football-mad Ohio, he followed his father's passion for rugby and started playing for the same club as his father when he was only 13 years old. But Nate had to face the fact that there was no way to make a living as a professional rugby player in this country. So Nate gave his dad the news that he planned to quit rugby and go out for the football team at Ohio State University, with an eye toward making the NFL.

Why does an international footballer with the World at his feet decide to take his own life? On November 10, 2009, the German national goalkeeper Robert Enke stepped in front of a passing train. He was 32 years old. Viewed from the outside, Enke had it all. Here was a professional goalkeeper who had played for a string of Europe's top clubs, including Jose Mourinho's Benfica and Louis Van Gaal's Barcelona. Enke was destined to be his country's first choice for years. But beneath the veneer of success lay a darker story.

Step onto the pitch and into the lives of five of the greatest soccer strikers in history: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Kylian Mbappé, and Erling Haaland. Legends on the Pitch is more than just a collection of stories—it’s a celebration of perseverance, passion, and the moments that made these players icons of the beautiful game.

Who is Erik ten Hag? With an air of unperturbability, he ignores critics, follows his own methods and relentlessly pursues perfection on the pitch. His uncanny ability to analyse and solve problems—the 'process' as Ten Hag calls it—has unfailingly led to breakthrough. There is no magic. There is only intelligence at work, personal devotion to players and near-obsessive attention to detail. Maarten Meijer's definitive biography follows Erik ten Hag, from his upbringing in the Dutch countryside to his domestic triumphs and European victories.

FC Barcelona is not just the world’s highest grossing sports club, it is simply one of the most influential organizations on the planet. At last count, it had approximately 214 million social media followers, more than any other sports club except Real Madrid CF—and by one earlier measure, more than all 32 NFL teams combined. It has more in common with multinational megacompanies like Netflix or small nation-states than it does with most soccer teams. Journalist Simon Kuper tells the story of how FC Barcelona became the most successful club in the world.