Inverting The Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics Paperback – August 14, 2018

"Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics" was written by British sports journalist Jonathan Wilson. Wilson charts the history of football tactics from the 1870s to the present day. Over time teams became more cautious and defensive as winning took priority.The book is an entertaining account of the evolution of football tactics around the world. It starts with the original 1-2-7 line-up favoured by England in 1872. By 1884, England was using a 2-3-5 formation. Over time teams added defenders and used fewer forwards. The initial pyramid formations (2-3-5) ended with being inverted (4-4-2) as time moved on.Wilson discusses many of the great sides and the tactical innovations they introduced. Wilson starts in Britain in the 19th century. Scotland had an early reputation for slick, passing football with quick, skillful players, in marked contrast to England's more direct and pragmatic style. The English considered `passing' to be unmanly.The game grew as British expats took the game to South America and continental Europe. Wilson describes how the game developed in different parts of the world. Wilson analyzes the boring, anti-football pf the Italian teams of the 1960s. The exciting Brazilian teams of the 1950s and 1960s. The "Total Football" of the Dutch in the 1970s. He does not spend much time discussing German football, which is a pity.Wilson describes the sometimes eccentric coaches who built successful teams. Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman introduced the W-M system (3-2-2-3) in the 1920s. This system was used in England until the 1960s. Chapman is also credited with introducing the numbers on player's shirts. Gustav Sebes, who pioneered the 4-2-4 formation, was the coach of the fabulous Hungarian team of the 1950's. His ideas were taken to Brazil by his protégé Bela Guttman. The 4-2-4 formation was popular until 1966, when England won the World Cup playing 4-1-3-2.The book discusses the innovations of Scotsmen Bill Shankly (Liverpool) and Matt Busby (Manchester United) who changed the face of the English game in the 1960s. He also writes about Valeriy Lobanovsky (Dynamo Kiev), Arrigo Sacchi (AC Milan), Helenio Herrera (Inter), Rinus Michels (Ajax) and many others. The author debunks the theories of Charles Reep and Charles Hughes, and their pseudo-scientific justification of direct football. Hughes claimed the Dutch and Brazilians were playing football the wrong way.Today, 4-2-3-1, 4-3-2-1, and 4-3-3 are popular formations in the English Premier League. Many professional teams are flexible enough to change their formation during games. Inverting the Pyramid is an enjoyable and engrossing read. I would recommended it to anyone interested in understanding the tactical history of the game.

Great book, a must read for any coach as it will help them understand the evolution of tactics.

(Reviewing the U.S. version of the book) This is a wonderful book for someone of an intellectual mindset coming to soccer as an adult. Wilson explains the early development of the sport, how duties came to be assigned to particular positions, and how those duties and positions evolved over time. He also describes how national styles developed, with a particular emphasis on how England came to its particular directness and physicality, and how it has failed to learn many lessons.I had only two complaints. The first is that Wilson repeatedly will switch from talking about one club, manager, or strategy to another without clear transitions or set-up for the new topic. This gets very confusing at times. The second is that this book is a challenge for non-British readers. Wilson assumes that the reader has a fairly detailed historical knowledge of British soccer. He'll refer casually to managers, players, and incidents of 100 or 150 years ago on the assumption that everyone knows who or what they are. That can make it difficult to understand some parts of the narrative.And now a special note of derision for the U.S. version of the book. The publisher appears to have recognized that Americans are getting more interested in soccer, and responded by producing an edition that, as far as I can tell, did nothing but search and replace "football" with "soccer," including in the subtitle. It comes off quite oddly in some places, particularly in references to "Total Soccer" instead of "Total Football." To be clear, any American who has taken the effort to read this book is accustomed to hearing the sport we know of as "soccer" called "football." If they wanted to produce a book for the U.S. market, their efforts would have been better spent by producing a glossary or adding some footnotes explaining the things that every Briton knows.

I have been reading through this book which is almost the size of the bible. It's loaded full of detailed stories of soccer strategies and ideas. Really good to help a new comer be aware of what has come before. It also give me ideas for things we could try differently in various situations.

Great book on the evolution of tactics in soccer. This book will give you ideas on how to create your own tactical innovations: