Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #337135 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 38 pages

Match Magazine October 9, 2007
This is one of the coolest football books - ever!

icons website - October
The ultimate hands-on football book for boys

Synopsis
The challenge is to select the top 11 players in world football. An international coach travels around the globe selecting his top 50 players. The book is his file: it includes the players' stats, profile and a detailed 12-month guide to their form. Confidential reports are hidden away behind flaps and secret windows revealing more and more facts to take into account. A lost password can only be discovered through a series of quizzes. The coach doesn't know when the big game will be played, he only knows that the opposition are out of this world, that defeat is not an option and that someone (or something) is working against him every step of the way. At the end of the book is a plan for six possible formations the coach is considering. The reader uses 50 detachable player cards to trial his teams until he comes up with the best-possible World XI. It's a book, it's a game, it's the ultimate challenge!

Customer Reviews

A well put together book
I know little about football but I do know this inventive book has kept my two sons engaged since we bought it on the strength of a top recommendation in their football mag. Others here have mentioned the flaps, secret reports and card game. It is clearly produced by someone who knows their audience very well and how to keep them coming back for more.

The reading level is a bit of a challenge for my youngest but I'm just pleased to see a book in front of him. More of the same please for when they've exhausted this one.

Impressed
This book is really very well thought out and a first of its kind as far as I know. It's about turning 50 of the top players in world football into the best team but (like other popular books) it's full of envelopes, flaps, information wheels, etc. My favourite is a pop-up of Gordon Banks' famous save from Pele. The book ends in a large layout of a pitch where you try out 50 player cards in up to six different formations. Then you use a secret pass to log it onto their web site and try to match the team selected by a real top coach. I bought it for a 12 year-old but it's been picked up and argued over by everyone (at least every fan) who's come into the house. I'm not totally sure it needs the back story but it hangs together and doesn't intrude on the sheer indulgence of attractively packaged football information. Cleverly designed and extremely well produced, probably quite subtly educational too. Definitely to be encouraged.

Great new football book
What a stunning book for a young fan. We brought it for our son's birthday and it's not left his side since. Now he's not just telling his dad the best team in the world - he's got all the stats to prove it too. His sister got her Egyptology book but this is its equal in every way! Only problem now is, all his friends are coming round to enter their top teams on the book's hugely impressive web-site.