Reddit reviews Inverting the Pyramid

Inverting the Pyramid - Jonathan Wilson

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inverting-Pyramid-History-Football-Tactics/dp/1409128644

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inverting-Pyramid-History-Football-Tactics/dp/1409128644

History of football tactics. Basically the essential start if you want to get deep on it, and learn about it.

I haven't actually read it myself so not a recommendation, but Jonathan Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid is supposed to be an excellent book on tactics: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inverting-Pyramid-History-Football-Tactics/dp/1409128644

This is an eternal one. There is no guaranteed "good way" as it is a still a matter of discussion how to approach a "matter of football" to be able to fully (or at least as good as possible) understand it.

For day to day performances, you can always follow services that even scouts use (like Opta, even FM and stuff) or free online sites like Squawka. However, I highly recommend to apporach them critically and with hindsight. It never tells a full story. Full story is watching the match, several times in a best way, not that almost anyone who is not paid for it, does.

Even though, you need to see what you are looking at. I think it is ideal, as in any research, to collect all sources. There is a great literature about a history and development of tactics (eg. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inverting-Pyramid-History-Football-Tactics/dp/1409128644) or you can just follow some websities dedicated to it like http://www.zonalmarking.net.

This the one? I was thinking of getting it for my grandad for Christmas. ^^^^.

Inverting the Pyramid is probably a great place to start

Having 5 up front was very common. It was also a lot more common back then to see scores like 6-3, 5-2 etc often. The modern "defender" is a very new concept when you look at football as a whole.

In fact, the earliest "formation" in football was notoriously known as "the pyramid", because it was a 2-3-5 formation in the shape of a pyramid. The 2-3-2-3 is probably the most common formation through football history.

Also, ever wondered why a CB is referred to as a "centre half"? The central midfielder was once known as the centre half, but many teams started shifting their centre half into the defensive line while attacking, in a ploy to concede less goals on the counter attack, which was a new concept at the time. Think of Michael Carrick or Steven Gerrard in the modern era, when they slide into a back 3.

Jonathan Wilson wrote a very interesting book called Inverting the Pyramid. Well worth picking up if you're interested in tactics or football history in general.

Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics
by Jonathan Wilson


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inverting-Pyramid-History-Football-Tactics/dp/1409128644

If you want to start right at the bottom, Inverting the pyramid by Jonathan Wilson is a great book on the history of tactics from the 1900's all the way up to now. A lot of good stuff in there to make you think about why certain positions and tactics exist. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1409128644/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_L3NXDbSMFSTCP

I haven't read it myself (planning too though), but I've heard a lot of praise about inverting the pyramid:The History of Football Tactics.

This is the correct answer. It's also why we have the terms full-back and why centre backs are sometimes referred to as centre-halves (they used to be the central half-backs). It's also where the inside-forward comes from (8 and 10 being the inside-right and inside-left).

There's a very informative book called Inverting The Pyramid which is a history of tactics and includes this information. The Pyramid was what the old 2-3-5 formation was called.

> formations are largely the same

Year to year this is mostly true (varying between countries and even divisions based on skills of players) but over a longer period it has changed quite a lot. If you're interested in this sort of thing I really recommend Inverting the Pyramid which is an amazing overview of how the "standard" formation has changed