Das Reboot

October 15, 2015

What Michael Lewis did for baseball with his best-selling Moneyball and Cameron Stauth did for basketball in The Franchise, soccer columnist Honigstein does for soccer as he re-creates the dramatic rise of the German game, and that country's path toward becoming World Cup champions in 2014. His story is one of soccer success at the highest level after several near World Cup misses; Germany finished third in 2006 and 2010. The evolution of a championship began with these earlier losses as coach Joachim Low and general manager Oliver Bierhoff built a team around key veterans and younger stars, many of whom became passionate about the game while playing in youth leagues. Later, we see the beginnings of success through the eyes of one specific player, forward Mario Gotze, in a diary-like chapter on the 2010 World Cup experience. Dealing with issues such as injuries, teamwork, the lineup, and an assortment of unseen circumstances, Germany still prevailed on the world's biggest stage in 2014. VERDICT Of the many recently published soccer titles, this is a most welcome addition. The result, like Germany's team, is at the championship level.--Boyd Childress, formerly with Auburn Univ. Libs., AL

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2015
To most people, German soccer is as dominant as former England striker Gary Lineker's joke suggests: Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and, at the end, the Germans always win. But within Germany, prior to the 2014 World Cup, there was a belief that the national team wasn't living up to its potential, with near-misses and early exits in major tournaments since their last World Cup win in 1990. Das Reboot chronicles an amazing turnaround characterized by German efficiency, with the German soccer association instituting a long-term plan to allow better identification and coaching of youth talent, and coaches (first Jurgen Klinsmann, then Joachim Low) combining modern methodology with a high-energy passing and pressing game bearing little resemblance to willpower-induced wins of the past. Honigstein, a highly respected print journalist and TV pundit, weaves scrupulous research and generous quotes into a compelling narrative that alternates historical perspective with the modern team's march toward triumph in Brazil. Championship teams always have their books, but few are as thoughtful and edifying as this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)