Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics

Whether it's Terry Venables keeping his wife up late at night with diagrams on scraps of paper spread over the eiderdown, or the classic TV sitcom of moving the salt & pepper around the table top in the transport cafe, football tactics are now part of the fabric of everyday life. Steve McLaren's switch to an untried 3-5-2 against Croatia will probably go down as the moment he lost his slim credibility gained from dropping David Beckham; Jose Mourinho, meanwhile, was often brought to task for trying to smuggle the long ball game back into English football. Here Jonathan Wilson pulls apart the modern game, traces the world history of tactics from modern pioneers right back to beginning where chaos reigned. Along the way he looks at the lives of great players and thinkers who shaped the game, and probes why the English, in particular, have 'proved themselves unwilling to grapple with the abstract'.

About the Author :
Jonathan Wilson has been the Football Correspondent of the FINANCIAL TIMES, and currently writes for THE INDEPENDENTand INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY. BEHIND THE CURTAIN was his (very well received) first book.

Review :
A masterful work, It's all deliciously nerdy - a cross between a coaching manual and a social history - and if its publication helps foster a flowering of interest in the tactical and analytical side of the game in this country, it could be the best thing to have happened to English football in years. Facts and stats, plus anecdotes, interviews and Wilson's deft touch with football-speak, give colour to a subject that can be a little dry and all-too confusing for those watching (and often those picking the side). For a detailed analysis of how a single striker became the norm throughout football, you had better read Jonathan Wilson's excellent new book about tactics. [A] fascinating history of tactics, a book that is guaranteed to enhance your football watching; your team may still lose, but you'll have a far better idea why they did. This must surely go down as one of the most revelatory sports books of the year, as well as one of the best, who would have thought that a book charting the history of football tactics and strategy, from the 1870s to the present day, could be so engrossing and entertaining. Absorbing and informative. A gloriously readable, eccentric and informative trawl through the changing tactical mindsets and formations that have helped shape the beautiful game. You will never read a more entertaining or erudite history of tactics This is a masterful piece of research and lives up to the claim to be nothing less than "a history of football tactics". Fascinating. A fascinating analysis of the way the game has evolved tactically from the 1870s... as a summary of the first 140 years of football tactical history, it is hard to imagine a more readable or thorough effort. Here, for the first time in decades, is a top-notch football book, on how football is actually played on the pitch.