Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 18: Total Recall
Wilson connects the era of Total Football in the 1970s with the modern era of soccer tactics articulated by coaches like Louis van Gaal, Marcelo Bielsa, and Pep Guardiola.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 17: The Return of the Back Three
Wilson writes about the decline of the libero (or sweeper) in Italian soccer, and chronicles the rise of Arrigo Sacchi and his use of pressing, zonal marking, compact team shape, spatial discipline, and physical fitness.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 16: The Return of the Back Three
Wilson focuses on the shift in tactics in European soccer in the 1980s and 1990s, especially Johan Cruyff's stint as a coach at Barcelona.
Wilson also notes the globalization of club soccer through widespread broadcast rights, transfer markets, and international club competitions like the UEFA Champions League.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 15: The English Pragmatism (2)
Wilson highlights a defeat Liverpool experiences against the Serbian club Crvena Zvezda in 1973, and the subsequent tactical changes Liverpool makes as a result of the loss.
There's also quite a bit of attention paid to the Boot Room, the famous space at Anfield where Liverpool's brain trust developed, refined, and continued the "Liverpool Way."
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 14: Fly Me to the Moon
Wilson focuses on the 1970 World Cup hosted by Mexico in this chapter: The Brazilian team's mesmerizing mix of individual talent and team tactics, the impact television had (and has had) on the competition, and its place as one of the most captivating World Cups in history.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 13: Science and Sincerity
Wilson profiles Valeriy Lobanovskyi, a standout player and pioneering coach for Dynamo Kyiv.
Lobanovskyi was an early believer in analytics, a scientific approach to player development and performance, and balancing the scientific with the humane.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 12: Total Football
Wilson goes to post-World War II Netherlands and documents the evolution of totaalvoetbal at Ajax and the Dutch National team from the 1960ss through the 1970s.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 11: After the Angels
Wilson analyzes the impact a 6-1 loss to Czechoslovakia in the 1958 World Cup impacted the development of soccer in Argentina.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 10: Catenaccio
Wilson analyzes the evolution of catenaccio, a style of soccer that features defensive rigidity and the libero, or sweeper.
Even though Wilson gives a nod to Karl Rappan in Switzerland and the Italian Nereo Rocco, most of the chapter is devoted to Helenio Herrara's use of the system.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 9: The Birth of the New
Wilson profiles Viktor Maslov, a Russian coach credited with being on the vanguard of numerous numerous trends in the 1960s that have become the foundation of modern soccer: The 4-4-2 formation, zonal marking, and pressing.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 8: The English Pragmatism (1)
Wilson revisits the recurring theme of conservatism in English soccer, specifically the emphasis of physicality, grit, and efficiency over technical ability and tactical evolution.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 7: Harnessing the Carnival
Wilson explores the evolution of soccer in Brazil from its English aristocratic roots in the 19th century to its modern style of "jogo bonito."
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 6: The Hungarian Connection
Wilson anchors this chapter with the "Match of the Century," an international friendly between Hungary and England on November 25, 1953.
Despite being the proud progenitor of modern soccer and boasting an outstanding record at home, England was embarrassed by Hungary's dominating 6-3 performance. The Hungarians' tactical and technical superiority led by superstar Ferenc Puskás and coach Gusztáv Sebes humbled England, and Hungary's subsequent 7-1 win in a rematch in Budapest in 1954 led to a reevaluation of many aspects within English soccer.
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.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 4: How Fascism Destroyed the Coffee House
For the first half of this chapter, Wilson focuses on the Austrian soccer culture that existed in the 1920s and the 1930s led by Hugo Meisl's Wunderteam. Over the latter half of the chapter, Wilson focuses on the evolution of Italian soccer under the leadership of Vittorio Pozzo.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 3: The Third Back
From 1866 until 1925, offsides was called if three players (including the goalkeeper) were between an attacking player and the goal they were attacking. But after scoring continued on a downward trend, a new rule change was adopted in 1926 to reduce the number of defending players to only two players (including the goalkeeper).
In this chapter, Wilson writes about how that rule change led coach Herbert Chapman to adopting the W-M formation (3-2-2-3), the next evolution in soccer tactics.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 2: The Walz and the Tango
Wilson opens this chapter by tracing the role the British Empire plays in planting the seeds of soccer in various parts of the world, and spends most of the chapter in Austria, Hungary, Argentina, and Uruguay.
A key individual profiled is Jimmy Hogan, an English player and coach credited with influencing the Danubian School of soccer in the early 20th century, Total Football in the 1970s, and modern soccer tactics today.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Jonathan Wilson)
Chapter 1: From Genesis to the Pyramid
Wilson spends most of the chapter tracing the evolution of the various early rules and conventions in the 19th century that define the game of soccer that we know today, but he closes with an historical analysis of what's considered to be the first formation of the modern era: The pyramid, or the 2-3-5.
