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F365 Book Club: Talking Tactics

Inverting The Pyramid is the book that's made nerds out of the more discerning football fans in 2008 and Pete May encourages its purchase as a Christmas present for football thinkers...

Last Updated: 20/12/08 at 13:17 Post Comment

When Howard Wilkinson was unveiled as new Sunderland manager five or six years ago, his assistant Steve Cotterill told the assembled press: "We are under no illusions about the size of the challenge. This is not the time and place for Howard and I to fulfil our coaching fantasies."

That makes you wonder exactly what videos they're showing on these UEFA conferences, but cutting-edge analysis backed up by laminated Lilleshall certificates is ever more popular. We can all think of current bosses we suspect switch on ProZone rather than PornHub when turning Japanese.

This is not to say we should disallow tactical considerations from the bedroom altogether. Some of my finest moments on a mattress have been spent observing a midfield triangle with Tonton Zola Moukoko at the apex behind a three-pronged strikeforce of Andri Sigporsson, Cherno Samba and Kennedy Bakircioglu.

But outside of Championship Manager 3, Shankly and Clough were both preachers of a simple game. In today's Premier League neither the most successful manager of all time - Sir Alex Ferguson - nor (arguably) the most successful of the season - Martin O'Neill - would list tactical detail as their strongest suit. Football, this country believes, is about players.

Against this backdrop, Jonathan Wilson has his work cut out with Inverting The Pyramid. By the author's own admission, the English indifference to strategic sophistication is a constant source of irritation and he sets out to allay our ignorance with an exhaustive history of football tactics.

It is impressively wide-ranging, from Victorian Britain to Euro 2008 via Austria's 1920s Wunderteam, the 'slippery as squirrels' 1930s Uruguayans, pre-European Cup Wolves being anointed the 'Champions of the World', and the great teams of Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands and Italy. Particularly impressive are those on the irresistible 1950s Hungary and Viktor Maslov's Dynamo Kyiv (Wilson's previous book, Behind the Curtain, is a brilliant dissection of football in eastern Europe), and the disaster that was Charles Hughes at the FA.

From an English ignoramus perspective, it is astonishing the extent to which we do not learn from history.

For example: "If you do away with [hacking], you will do away with all the pluck of he game, and I will be bound to bring over a lot of Frenchmen who would beat you with a week's practice."

That was a committee man arguing in 1863 that 'kicking to the shins' must remain a legal tactic, but the same words will be heard as soon as Big Sam's Blackburn face Arsenal.

Even more clichéd, the legendary Jimmy Hogan was saying during the Great War: "The great advantage which continental football has over British soccer is that boys are coached in the art of the game at a tender age."

If you haven't read Trevor Brooking saying exactly that to the Daily Telegraph then fret ye not: another interview will be along in a minute.

Wilson has delivered a fascinating narrative of the different ways people have played football all over the world and an invaluable addition to the serious-minded literature on the game. Recently nominated for the William Hill Prize, it would have been a worthy winner but was probably too niche in its interests. After all, tactics can only help you understand and appreciate the game so far. Sunderland's record under Wilkinson and Cotterill makes that clear enough.

* Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics by Jonathan Wilson is £18.99 (Orion) though probably drastically reduced in the current climate.

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