“It was a night made for werewolves and stickup men — one of those airless southern, summer evenings. As I mounted the metal steps for Parents’ Night, I was beset by dread…“Soccer?” I asked myself again. “What in the hell do I know about soccer?”

So began one man’s three-year quest to uncover the secrets of The American Game. Full of wit, wisdom and moments of brilliant weirdness, this laugh-out-loud look at the U.S. soccer boom finally tells the story of how a sport came to claim 20 million followers while no one was looking.

Journalist Jim Haner roams far and wide to untangle this “great saga as-yet-untold,” revealing much along the way about the spirit of a people, their enduring love of a game, and the improbable origins of a tenacious subculture that has become America’s “new secular religion.”

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“A solid contribution…wonderfully graphic…put together in a way that’s never been done before. ‘Soccerhead’ gives us back our history…I hope there’s a sequel because I’m dying to know what these kids do next.”
Len Oliver
National Soccer Hall of Fame

"Funny, insightful, dead-on in its observations, Soccerhead is absolutely the best soccer book I've ever read, and I've read them all. It takes off like it was shot from a cannon...easily the most important book I've seen on the American game. This is significant."
Anson Dorrance
Head Coach, University of North Carolina
Women's Soccer & Author, Vision of a Champion

"The knowledge of the game that Jim Haner has been able to incapsule in this book is just amazing. Even people who have been involved in soccer for years will find something here that they didn't know before about the psychology, philosophy and history of the sport. Soccerhead is full of surprises, and it keeps you laughing along the way."
John Harkes
Fox-TV Soccer Commentator
National Soccer Hall of Fame legend
Youth Development Director DC United