Read Of The Week (Oct 24 to Oct 30)

From the author of the bestselling Soccernomics comes a book that promises to reshape our understanding of football and the world’s most talked-about club: FC Barcelona.

After 30 years of unprecedented access, this book takes the reader behind closed doors into the changing room, the training ground and the boardroom to reveal the real stories behind Barca’s rise to global sports superpower — and its recent fall from grace.

It includes interviews with the towering personalities responsible for transforming Barca, including Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola.

It details the work of coaches, medics, data analysts and nutritionists, as well as extraordinary players like Lionel Messi, in building not just a club but a football philosophy.

It analyses the unique structure of Barca from the Catalan power politics at the top, the cutting-edge sports science hub it has created and its legendary youth academy known as La Masia. Simon Kuper’s first book, Football Against the Enemy, won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award and is acknowledged as one of football’s seminal books.

Simon writes a weekly sports column in the Financial Times and has previously written football columns for the Times and Observer.