The Barcelona Complex

Author: Simon Kuper
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593297733
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Book Description
With rare and unrivaled access, bestselling coauthor of Soccernomics and longtime Financial Times journalist Simon Kuper tells the story of how FC Barcelona became the most successful club in the world—and how that era is now ending 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 thirty-two NFL teams combined. It has more in common with multinational megacompanies like Netflix or small nation-states than it does with most soccer teams. No wonder its motto is “More than a club.” But it was not always so. In the past three decades, Barcelona went from a regional team to a global powerhouse, becoming a model of sustained excellence and beautiful soccer, and a consistent winner of championships. Simon Kuper unravels exactly how this transformation took place, paying special attention to the club’s two biggest stars, Johan Cruyff and Lionel Messi, who is arguably the greatest soccer player of all time. Messi joined Barça at age thirteen and, more than anyone, has been the engine and standard-bearer of Barcelona’s glory. But his era is coming to an end—and with it, a once-in-a-lifetime golden run. This book charts Barça’s rise and fall. Like many world-beating organizations, FC Barcelona closely guards its secrets, granting few outsiders access to the Camp Nou, its legendary home stadium. But after decades of writing about the sport and the club, Kuper was given access to the inner sanctum and the people behind the scenes who strive daily to keep Barcelona at the top. Erudite, personal, and capturing all the latest upheavals, his portrait of this incredible institution goes beyond soccer to understand FC Barcelona as a unique social, cultural, and political phenomenon.

Barça

Author: Simon Kuper
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1780724756
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
WINNER OF THE FOOTBALL BOOK OF THE YEAR 'This is a masterfully written history of the world's greatest football club. Més que un book!' - GARY LINEKER From the bestselling co-author of Soccernomics comes the story of how FC Barcelona became the most successful football club in the world - and how that envied position now hangs in the balance. Barça is not just the world's most popular sports club, it is simply one of the most influential organisations on the planet. With almost 250 million followers on social media and 4 million visitors to its Camp Nou stadium each year, there's little wonder its motto is 'More than a club'. But it was not always so. In the past three decades, Barcelona has transformed from regional team to global powerhouse, becoming a model of sporting excellence and a consistent winner of silverware. Simon Kuper unravels exactly how these transformations took place. He outlines the organisational structure behind the club's business decisions, and details the work of its coaches, medics, data analysts and nutritionists who have revolutionised the sporting world. And, of course, he studies the towering influence of the club's two greatest legends, Johan Cruyff and Lionel Messi. Like many leading global businesses, FC Barcelona closely guards its secrets, granting few outsiders a view behind the scenes. But, after decades of writing about the sport and the club, Kuper was given unprecedented access to the inner sanctum and to the people who strive daily to keep Barcelona at the top. Erudite, personal, and capturing all the latest successes and upheavals, his portrait of this incredible institution goes beyond football to understand Barça as a unique social, cultural, and political phenomenon. "I began my research thinking I was going to be explaining Barca's rise to greatness, and I have, but I've also ended up charting the decline and fall."

Complex Systems in Sport

Author: Keith Davids
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136482156
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Book Description
Complex systems in nature are those with many interacting parts, all capable of influencing global system outcomes. There is a growing body of research that has modeled sport performance from a complexity sciences perspective, studying the behavior of individual athletes and sports teams as emergent phenomena which self-organise under interacting constraints. This book is the first to bring together experts studying complex systems in the context of sport from across the world to collate core theoretical ideas, current methodologies and existing data into one comprehensive resource. It offers new methods of analysis for investigating representative complex sport movements and actions at an individual and team level, exploring the application of methodologies from the complexity sciences in the context of sports performance and the organization of sport practice. Complex Systems in Sport is important reading for any advanced student or researcher working in sport and exercise science, sports coaching, kinesiology or human movement.

Complex Social Networks

Author: Fernando Vega-Redondo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521674096
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
Publisher description

Self-Organization in Complex Ecosystems. (MPB-42)

Author: Ricard Solé
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140084293X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
Can physics be an appropriate framework for the understanding of ecological science? Most ecologists would probably agree that there is little relation between the complexity of natural ecosystems and the simplicity of any example derived from Newtonian physics. Though ecologists have long been interested in concepts originally developed by statistical physicists and later applied to explain everything from why stock markets crash to why rivers develop particular branching patterns, applying such concepts to ecosystems has remained a challenge. Self-Organization in Complex Ecosystems is the first book to clearly synthesize what we have learned about the usefulness of tools from statistical physics in ecology. Ricard Solé and Jordi Bascompte provide a comprehensive introduction to complex systems theory, and ask: do universal laws shape the structure of ecosystems, at least at some scales? They offer the most compelling array of theoretical evidence to date of the potential of nonlinear ecological interactions to generate nonrandom, self-organized patterns at all levels. Tackling classic ecological questions--from population dynamics to biodiversity to macroevolution--the book's novel presentation of theories and data shows the power of statistical physics and complexity in ecology. Self-Organization in Complex Ecosystems will be a staple resource for years to come for ecologists interested in complex systems theory as well as mathematicians and physicists interested in ecology.

Barcelona's Vocation of Modernity

Author: Joan Ramon Resina
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804758328
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
Barcelona's Vocation of Modernity is a study of the emergence and development of the cultural image of the Iberian peninsula’s foremost modern city.

Barcelona and Madrid

Author: Aránzazu Ascunce Arenas
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1611484251
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
For hundreds of years, Barcelona and Madrid have shared a deep rivalry. Throughout history, they have competed in practically every aspect of social life, sport, politics, and culture. While competition between cities is commonplace in many nations around the world, in the case of Barcelona and Madrid it has been, on occasion, excessively antagonistic. Over time they have each tried to demonstrate that one was more modern than the other, or more avant-garde, or richer, or more athletic, and so on. Fortunately, the Spain of today is a democracy and every nation and region of the State has the liberty to act. As such, the rivalry between these two capitals has become productive not only for the cities themselves, but also for Spain as a whole. One hundred years ago, at the onset of the Historical Avant-Garde in Spain, the connections between Barcelona and Madrid consisted of a complicated web of politics, friendships, publications, and inter-art collaborations. Over the last century, the antagonistic relationship between these two cultural capitals has been dismissed as simply a fact of life and thereby scholars, for the most part, have focused only on Barcelona or Madrid when addressing this cultural moment. By delving deep into the myriad of cultural and political complexities that surround these two cities from the onset of Futurism (1909) to the arrival of Surrealism in Spain (1929), a complex social and cultural network is revealed. Networking between artists, poets, journalists and thinkers connected avant-garde Barcelona and Madrid, thereby creating synergy for this artistic and literary movement. In a hybrid, transdisciplarian, translingual and historical approach using a wide range of visual and textual artifacts, the complexity of interactions described here opens our imagination to new ways of thinking about culture.

Fear and Loathing in La Liga

Author: Sid Lowe
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446496635
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 452

Book Description
‘A history of modern Spain told through one of world football's most intense rivalries’ Independent ‘Sports Book of the Year’ Sunday Times It’s Messi vs Ronaldo, it’s Catalonia vs Castilla. It’s the nation against the state, freedom fighters vs Franco’s fascists. It’s majestic goals and mesmerising skills, red cards and bench brawls. It’s the best two teams on the planet going face to face and toe to toe. It’s more than a game. It’s a war. It’s Barcelona vs Real Madrid. Only, it’s not that simple. From the wounds left by the civil war to the teams’ recent global domination, historian and expert on Spanish football, Sid Lowe lifts the lid on sport’s greatest rivalry. Lowe has spoken to the biggest names and the forgotten heroes who defined their clubs. Men like Alfredo Di Stéfano and Johan Cruyff as well as the only survivor of the most politically charged game in history, the Barcelona striker who knocked Madrid out of the European Cup for the first time ever, and the president who celebrated his club’s defining moment by taking a midnight dip in the Thames. By exploring the history, politics, culture, economics and language, while never forgetting the drama on the pitch, Lowe demonstrates the symbiotic nature of the relationship between these two football giants. In doing so he reveals the human story behind this explosive rivalry.

The Barcelona Incident

Author: FERNANDO. ALEU
Publisher: Roca Editorial
ISBN: 9788418417740
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
The Barcelona Incident is a novel of love and friendship during the Second World War. In the port of Barcelona, four thousand soldiers were exchanged on October 27, 1943. One of the prisoners is a 24-year-old German Jew who, if returned to Germany, ran the risk of being sent to a concentration camp.

Blood Crime

Author: Sebastià Alzamora
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1616956283
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
It is 1936, and Barcelona burns as the Spanish Civil War takes over. The city is a bloodbath. Yet in all this death, the murders of a Marist monk and a young boy, drained of their blood, are strange enough to catch a police inspector's attention. The Marist brothers of the murdered monk are being persecuted; meanwhile, a convent of Capuchin nuns hides in plain sight, trading favours with the military police to stay alive. In their midst is a thirteen-year-old novice who stumbles into the clutches of the murderer. Can she escape in this city of no happy endings?