Sports Biographies Football

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.

In the most candid and compelling sports memoir since Andre Agassi's riveting bestseller Open, former San Francisco 49er, Super Bowl champion, NFL MVP, and Hall of Famer Steve Young gives listeners an unprecedented and stunning inside look at what it takes to become a super-elite professional quarterback.

November 2019. Unai Emery’s final game as Arsenal manager sees the Gunners languishing eighth in the league. Appointed in the dying embers of the Wenger years, Emery’s 18 months as Arsenal boss has seen the team and the club go backwards – playing unimaginative, pragmatic football, and recently losing to London rivals Chelsea in the final of the Europa League. Something had to change; a fresh head with fresh ideas. A new leader.

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.

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.

The full story of the man who brought unprecedented - and since unmatched - success to Liverpool FC. Bob Paisley was the quiet man in the flat cap who swept all domestic and European opposition aside and produced arguably the greatest club team that Britain has ever known. The man whose Liverpool team won trophies at a rate-per-season that dwarfs Sir Alex Ferguson’s achievements at Manchester United and who remains the only Briton to lead a team to three European Cups.

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....

You may know him as an NFL All-Pro or as an elite magician who made the finals of America’s Got Talent. But Jon Dorenbos says that what he does is not who he is. Who he is is someone forced, at the most tender of ages, to coach himself into turning tragedy to triumph. One morning in August 1992, when Jon was 12 years old and living a seemingly idyllic childhood in suburban Seattle, he woke up for baseball camp. His dad waved good-bye. Later that day, Jon heard the news: His father had murdered his mother in the family’s three-car garage.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lionel Messi is a superstar soccer player. But what happens when he’s not scoring goals on the pitch? High-interest details of his fascinating life will enthrall listeners.

We are living in the Wild West of college sports. Name, Image and Likeness endorsements, the transfer portal, collectives, conference realignment, the powerful influence of media companies have all rendered the notion of amateur athletics a quaint relic of the past, replaced by a Brave New World where money and self-interest rule. The Price is a sweeping, in-depth, thought-provoking look at an inflection point in big-time college football.

Master of the no-look goal and Anfield favourite, Roberto 'Bobby' Firmino, signed for Liverpool in July 2015. Over the next eight years - and seven winners' medals - he established himself as one of the club's most important players in recent years for his audacious skill, impressive goal scoring, and beaming smile. Jürgen Klopp saw Firmino as the on-pitch 'engine' that drove the club's counter-pressing strategy and together with Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané, Firmino formed a formidable attacking trio.