About this item
“An outstanding work … the [soccer] book of the decade.” —Sunday Business PostInverting the Pyramid is a pioneering soccer book that chronicles the evolution of soccer tactics and the lives of the itinerant coaching geniuses who have spread their distinctive styles across the globe. Through Jonathan Wilson’s brilliant historical detective work we learn how the South Americans shrugged off the British colonial order to add their own finesse to the game; how the Europeans harnessed individual technique and built it into a team structure; how the game once featured five forwards up front, while now a lone striker is not uncommon. Inverting the Pyramid provides a definitive understanding of the tactical genius of modern-day Barcelona, for the first time showing how their style of play developed from Dutch “Total Football,” which itself was an evolution of the Scottish passing game invented by Queens Park in the 1870s and taken on by Tottenham Hotspur in the 1930s.
About the Author
Jonathan Wilson is the editor of the Blizzard and a freelance writer for the Guardian, World Soccer and Sports Illustrated. He is the author of eleven books, including 'Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics', 'Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe', 'Angels with Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina', 'The Barcelona Legacy' and 'The Names Heard Long Ago'.
