Don't know about soccer, but both of Andrew Gelman's books are bibles for me (economics). Data Analysis Using Regression and Hierarchical/Multilevel Modeling[1]

Don't know about soccer, but both of Andrew Gelman's books are bibles for me (economics). Data Analysis Using Regression and Hierarchical/Multilevel Modeling[1] and Bayesian Data Analysis[2]. He uses R. They're approachable, but get into some real hardcore stats. [1] http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/arm/ http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/arm/ [2] http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/book/ http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/book/