Liam McCann Libri

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Presented in an A to Z format, this illustrated compilation highlights all the tournament's pivotal moments and matches including England's glorious triumph on home soil in 1966 to Zidane's notorious sending off in the 2006 Final. The world's best players take centre stage from heroes of the past such as Pele, Beckenbauer and Maradona to today's superstars including Messi, Neymar and England captain Steven Gerrard.

The brainchild of Samuel Ryder, a wealthy seed merchant from St Albans, the Ryder Cup was a bi-annual British-American professional golf tournament that was first played for the trophy bearing his name in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1927. America won the match and gradually became the dominant force in the competition. During the 1960s the results were so one-sided that the Ryder Cup was expanded so that players from Ireland could compete for the British team. As the Americans continued to win comfortably, Jack Nicklaus led the movement to alter the teams so that European players were also allowed to compete against them. Since 1983 the contest has become one of the most competitive tournaments in the world, with many players achieving sporting immortality for their exploits on green and fairway on both sides of the Atlantic. This book examines the careers and Ryder Cup contributions of 50 of the greatest golfers in history, from Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer to Steve Ballesteros and Nick Faldo. Lavishly illustrated throughout, this book provides the perfect accompaniment to the upcoming tournament at Gleneagles in Scotland.

A superb accompaniment to the Netflix documentary on Pele launched in February 2021 THE BRAZILIAN FOOTBALL TEAM is believed to have played its first official match in 1914 against English club side Exeter City, which they won 2-0. Their first full international was against Argentina the same year. Since then they have become the most successful international football team in history. ‘The English invented it, the Brazilians perfected it’ is a phrase often heard in Brazil and the side has backed this up by winning the FIFA World Cup a record five times. Re-live the glory days of 1958, 1962 and 1970 when the Brazilian team was arguably the best the sport has produced. Check on the glittering careers of Rivaldo and Bebeto in the 1990s and wonder at the magic of the latest players to make it to the world stage like Neymar, Daniel Alves and Adriano. More than 500 footballers have worn the coveted yellow Brazilian shirt, from Pele to Gilmar, Dunga to Zico and Ronaldo to Kaka.This book provides detailed information on the Top 100, with each entry including fascinating statistics, career highs and lows and a brief biography of the finest footballers to have graced the game.

We talked to leading rugby journalists, we talked to ex-players, we talked to fans and we looked at the playing records of all the stand-out internationals to have played rugby for Ireland before compiling a list of the 50 greatest Irish rugby players in the sport's history. Many players were impossible to leave out such as Rory Best, Mike Gibson, Jamie Heaslip, Jack Kyle, Paul O'Connell, Brian O'Driscoll, Ronan O'Gara, Jonnie Sexton and Keith Wood. While Lions' legends such as Willie John McBride, Tom Kiernan, Syd Millar and Tony O'Reilly were also a shoo-in. There is also a hefty selection of modern-day players including Keith Earls, Tadhg Furlong, Cian Healy, Rob Kearney, Conor Murray, Peter O'Mahoney and the new whizkid winger Jacob Stockdale. While there is also space for the great characters of the game, none more so than Peter 'The Claw' Clohessy, Willie Duggan and Moss Keane, who didn't win the most caps but were fans' favourites because of the spirit in which they played. With a foreword by Ollie Campbell, the Ireland and British and Irish Lions flyhallf, each entry lists the key facts, statistics and achievements that help show why the selected players are part of the game's elite.