Sports Books 2004/Soccer:Few footballers can have blown it quite as comprehensively as Diego Armanda Maradona. Ten years after his final appearance on a major international stage there may indeed be a case for considering him a more gifted player than Pele.

However, while at 44 the man who was the driving force behind Argentina's World Cup triumph in 1986 appears to have only a slender grip on life itself the Brazilian, 20 years his senior, is wealthy and well, an influential figure in his nation's politics and a respected voice within the world game.

El Diego (Yellow Jersey Press c €24) could have provided a welcome insight into one of the game's most eventful careers but it doesn't. Even now, when he has little to lose and a good deal to gain, what we get is a prolonged bout of self-justification based on half truths and ludicrous lies.

Time and again he claims almost exclusive credit for anything that was achieved during his playing days, primarily the success at Napoli and that triumph with the national team in Mexico, but points the finger at others when recalling the many times things went badly wrong.

For the most part the book is readable enough and his description of on-field events will bring back fond memories for those who saw him at his best but there is just enough honesty, and clumsiness, as he seeks to evade blame to reveal all the tell-tale flaws that led to his premature downfall as a player.

It is, on the other hand, hard to read Gazza, My Story (c €28) without warming slightly to its subject: Paul Gascoigne. The book is years overdue with one ghost writer after another bailing out but Hunter Davies has done a solid job of giving the player a voice. The end product is hardly flawless but by the standards of the genre it's not bad and Davies has doubtless been helped by the fact the former England midfielder's fame has faded over the past few years.

But Gascoigne deserves credit too for opening up with considerable candour. He talks of the many demons that have troubled him from early life and his many failings, most notably his abusive relationship with former wife Sheryl, and his alcoholism, like a man still struggling to come to terms with the wreckage of his life. That, of course, is precisely what he is doing and after reading the book it's hard not to wish him well in what looks like some equally difficult times ahead.

By comparison some of football's superstars have it easy. The relocation to Madrid of David Beckham and, after what turned out to be a rather ill-advised delay, his family, cost the earth in what must have been a decent sized forest during the summer with no fewer than four books chronicling his first year in Spain hitting the shelves during the second half of 2004.

Pick of the bunch is by former Maradona biographer Jimmy Burns whose When Beckham Went To Spain (c €25) spares us the kick-by-kick account of the opening season at the Bernabeu, opting to put the whole thing in a (very) broad historical context.

In a book ostensibly about Beckham there is actually mercifully little about England's former boy wonder although clearly the intention is that there is enough to keep the target market happy. It's well researched and very readable although those who haven't already done so might consider simply picking up the author's Barca which is, in the absence of a largely uninteresting central figure, a much more satisfying read.

Where once there was only the Rothman's (now Sky Sports) annual for budding stattos the choice now grows greater with each passing year as the BBC, the Times and a whole string of major publishers churn out hefty books tightly packed with historical records and all manner of other information which, by rights, should only be available to licensed professionals (journalists that is, not players).

If the patient isn't already suffering from an incurable addiction to footballers' vital statistics (height, weight, number of appearances from the bench during loan spell at Grimsby, etc.) then David Goldblatt's Football Yearbook 2004/05 (by David Goldblatt, c €30) is the best bet with detailed, but still readable, entries on England's biggest clubs as well as attractive and well-illustrated sections on Europe and the rest of the world.

Back at home there has been little of real note with Red Mist - Roy Keane and the World Cup Civil War (by Conor O'Callaghan, €14.99) the pick.