Bookshelf: Inverting the Pyramid (Chapter 5)

 

 

 

 

 

Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)

Chapter 5: Organized Disorder

Wilson turns his attention to soccer in Russia and the Soviet Union in this chapter. 

After being introduced by British sailors in 1860, soccer in Russia didn't become more formally organized until the 1890s. Most of this chapter, though, focuses on soccer in the Soviet Union in the 1930s when a national league was first established.

A key event in Soviet soccer history occurred in 1937, when a Basque-rostered team played multiple games in the Soviet Union as part of a larger tour to bring awareness to the Basque cause in the Spanish Civil War.

Heading into the final leg of their tour on a 4-game unbeaten streak against their Soviet opponents, the Basque team encountered the bold tactical tinkering of coach Nicolai Starostin in a highly-anticipated and high-pressure game against Spartak Moscow. Spartak salvaged Soviet pride by winning 6-2, though Starostin was sent to a Siberian gulag six years later and was released after Joseph Stalin's death in 1953.

Starostin's successor as Soviet tactician was Boris Arkadyev, who coached with numerous Soviet clubs and whose playing philosophies of "disorganized order" and passovotchka are said to have been precursors to "Total Football" and Tika-Taka.