Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics Paperback – 5 Jun. 2014

Excellent quality and service, my son loves it.

Without doubt this book is an amazing piece of research and extremely thought-provoking. As has been stated elsewhere, this is a book that will most definitely change your perception of how the game is played and offers the most scientific assessment of "the beautiful game" that I have read.This book is very much a part of a new generation of writing about football with the analysis and insight being extremely fascinating. There was a time when books about football were notoriously badly written. "Inverting the pyramid" offers an assessment of the evolution of football formations from the Victorian era through to the 2000's. There is a logical progression in how the way the game has played with new formations coming into fruition to combat the challenges produced my earlier styles of play. The author is extremely knowledgeable in tracing the salient developments in football with the most significant developments being shown to have taken place outside the football mainstream. (British football seemed to lag behind from a vey early stage to the way the game was considered elsewhere.) So whilst there is reference to Britain, Brazil, Italy and Holland, other locations such as Austria and USSR are shown to have been equally important.Although I am a season ticket holder with Southampton, I am passionate about the history of football and "Inverting the pyramid" satisfied my curiousity in explaining how football tactics started and what prompted the change from the "forward charge" approach of 140 years ago. I'm not too interested in the period after the world war one and before I started to follow the sport in the 1970's yet Wilson's research makes this riveting. Some chapters are more interesting than others and there are times when the complexity of the diagrams and the narrative become a bit baffling. The only problem with the book was that I sometimes find myself out of my depth trying to understand the logic of formations - this is the kind of book that you really want to discuss with a professional footballer to get an angle on some of the points raised. Nice to see statistics used to destroy the logic behind the "long ball" style of football of the 1990's - speaking as someone who watched Ian Branfoot's truly woeful Southamtpon team play in this fashion in the first half of this decade!In conclusion, this is an intelligent and well-considered book which crackles with personal stories and is full of history. Sometimes it can be a bit too complex and there were moments when I wondered if another "expert" might choose an altogether different set of countries / teams as representatives of the changes in the way football is played. Upon reflection and as a layman, I did find myself sometimes questioning some of the reasoning put forward for developing formations and whether the changes were genuinely effective over the course of a season for a team . The coaches are allowed to speak through their own words and players are also quoted in explaining the logic behind the formations which does assist in making things a bit clearer. However, this book raises football to a science and it is unlikely is there has ever been a non-coaching book aimed at a popular audience on this topic. This is by no means a dry and academic book and whilst sometimes being complex, I felt really opened a window on how football is played to make the sport seem like a science. A "must read" yet be prepared to have to re-read some of the more complex arguments that are presented. All in all, this is one of the most intelligent and fascinating books I have read about football.

Others have written good reviews about the detail in this book which I agree with. I just wanted to confirm that you can use this book when coaching amateur teams. I've read various other books on coaching, most of which are too simplistic and/or too thoerectical - ie. they show no insight into tactical nuances, and no appreciation of the hard realities of a real match. This book describes real football played at the highest club and country levels over the past 100 years, in an in-depth, incisive way, and yet is so crystal clear in its telling that you genuinely can apply what you learn when coaching your local team. Over the chapters it gives real examples of each formation working (or not!); why mobile ball-playing centre backs replaced the purely hard men; how a sweeper can still operate effectively (how I love that one), but all told in easily accessible conversational form.And coaches - if you're feeling insecure, the real-life tales in this book are proof that you can be a saviour one season, then a has-been the next, only to resurface elsewhere as a saviour again. But that's what we're in it for isn't it?

Utterly brilliant. As a fan of Mr Wilson's writing, this book encapsulated his writing style about a subject the casual football fan may not appreciate. But I challenge any fan of the game not to be enthralled by the the level of research and how reading this will enhance your understanding your understanding of he game. Some may believe this to be a niche piece of writing but I implore any fan of the game to pick this up, read it and educate yourself on the evolution of football tactics. An interesting and detailed trawl through history written in such a good way. Buy it!

An interesting book that takes a long time to get into. This is a topic I'm fairly interested in, so thought I'd delve into the history of it all - and boy is it in here! The author clearly has done his research, almost too much so! I found myself having to think twice about a couple of things, and use my imagination with some of the descriptions. It's also a test of memory when it comes to linking players names with teams, and teams with coaches, and coaches with tactics and formations, and then back with players again!I'm pretty good with football history, so it held my attention, but for others it may be worth cherry picking the earlier stuff to see how it relates to the later stuff, which will be more familiar to most of us. It is certainly interesting to see how the early stuff lead to the later stuff, but it's not imperative for all.Overall, a good read, but very indepth, and you might get tired at times! You WILL learn stuff though!