The Greatest cover art

The Greatest

The Quest for Sporting Perfection

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Greatest

By: Matthew Syed
Narrated by: Simon Slater
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

What can Roger Federer teach us about the secret of longevity? What do the All Blacks have in common with improvised jazz musicians? What can cognitive neuroscientists tell us about what happens to the brains of sportspeople when they perform? And why did Johan Cruyff believe that beauty was more important than winning?

Matthew Syed, the Sports Journalist of the Year 2016, answers these questions and more in a fascinating, wide-ranging and provocative book about the mental game of sport. How do we become the best that we can be as individuals, teams and organisations? Sport, with its innate sense of drama, its competitive edge, its psychological pressures, its sense of morality and its elusive quest for perfection, provides the answers.

©2017 Matthew Syed (P)2017 Hodder & Stoughton Sports Psychology

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Bounce cover art
How to Be Like Mike cover art
$100M Leads cover art
Outliers cover art
World Class cover art
Do Hard Things cover art
Alex Ferguson: cover art
Leadership cover art
10 Years 13 Seconds cover art
How to Win cover art
The Jersey cover art
My Manchester United Years cover art
Barca cover art
Proud: My Autobiography cover art
Gazza in Italy cover art
Beware of the Dog cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
I enjoyed this book, and I am a fan of Matthew Syed’s. Some of the material in this book is found in his other books but never the less good to listen to. I found the narrator good, although if I am honest I must say, I found the pretend accents a bit cringe worthy and annoying. Overall, very good.

A good compilation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
i have become a fan of MS by now. he has provided an insight into greatness of some of the most successful sports people of recent past. love his way of thinking, clear and non judgmental. excellent book in every way...

Really good book. excellent narration.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Overall a very enjoyable book. I would recommend to any sports enthusiasts. A great look at sporting triumphs, the characters of those heros and political impacts of sport.

The narrator was good, the accents however were not, sort of distracted from the point of what these figures were saying.

Very Enjoyable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
very good story telling. covers the greatest sports personalities of our time with impressive detail.

great book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is an easy listen and while not as detailed as his previous books in terms of in depth analyses etc - it is still a very enjoyable book. A lot of this is based on articles from his work at the Times. If you love sport and Matthew's approach to analysing what makes people successful then you will enjoy this.

Not as impressive as previous books but still very enjoyable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very accessible, an easy listen
Performance gets an 8/10, the accents are jarring and inconsistently used they detract from the cadence of Syed's narrative

Amazing book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you read bounce and/or black box thinking this may not be for you.

This is different in as much that this is based on articles Matthew Syed has written and had published. Insightful and poetic as they are alot of the time there is alot of repition across from the other books and indeed within this one too.

I still enjoyed it none the less as Simon Slater is a good narrator and his very safe accents are amusing.

Worth a read but not a must.

Money for old Rope

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I am disappointed, I listened to two other books of the author and was expecting more! but most of the stories are repeated from the old books and there is no clear message and full of contradictory stories!

repetition and nothing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I am fascinated on what it takes to become great and have always had a particular interest in sporting greatest. This book walks us through the attributes, and lives, of many sporting icons. Overall a very enjoyable listen and you'll definitely have a deeper appreciation of your heroes, and villains.

An enjoyable listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Some really interesting stories on amazing people and interesting viewpoints on sport.

a sports geeks read for sure!

great book on sport

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews