Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics - Softcover

Wilson, Jonathan

4.15

11,834 ratings by Goodreads

9781409102045: Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1409102041 ISBN 13: 9781409102045

Publisher: Orion, 2009

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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'.

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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.**** (TIME OUT - book of the week)

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). (CQ)

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. (Patrick Barclay SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)

[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. (INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY)

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. (SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY)

Absorbing and informative (GUARDIAN ON LINE)

A gloriously readable, eccentric and informative trawl through the changing tactical mindsets and formations that have helped shape the beautiful game. (METRO)

You will never read a more entertaining or erudite history of tactics (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH-CHRISTMAS BOOKS)

This is a masterful piece of research and lives up to the claim to be nothing less than "a history of football tactics"... Facinating (SCOTSMAN -Books of the Year)

a fascinating analysis of the way the game has evolved tactically from the 1970s until the last season... as a summary of the first 140 years of football tactical history, it is hard to imagine a more readable or thorough effort. (IRISH EXAMINER)

Book Description:

Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, this is the first-ever comprehensive global history of football tactics by the highly acclaimed sports writer Jonathan Wilson.

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