Football: The Philosophy Behind the Game

Football is the most popular sport on the planet partly because it’s so simple to play – but as philosopher, novelist and avid fan Stephen Mumford shows, behind the straightforward rules of the game there lurks a world of intriguing complexity.

Mumford considers the intellectual basis upon which football rests, guiding readers through a number of issues at the heart of the game. How can a team be greater than the sum of its individual players? What is the essential role of chance? Should we...