Inverting The Pyramid

""[A] fascinating history of tactics, a book that is guaranteed to enhance your soccer watching; your team may still lose, but you'll have a far better idea why they did.""--Independent On Sunday ""A fascinating analysis of the way the game has evolved tactically from the 1870s... as a summary of the first 140 years of soccer tactical history, it is hard to imagine a more readable or thorough effort.""--Irish Examiner ""A gloriously readable, eccentric and informative trawl through the changing tactical mindsets and formations that have helped shape the beautiful game.""--Metro ""A masterful work. It's all deliciously nerdy - a cross between a coaching manual and a social history - and if its publication helps foster a flowering of interest in the tactical and analytical side of the game in this country, it could be the best thing to have happened to English soccer in years.""--Time Out ""Absorbing and informative.""--The Guardian ""Facts and stats, plus anecdotes, interviews and Wilson's deft touch with soccer-speak, give color to a subject that can be a little dry and all-too confusing for those watching (and often those picking the side).""--CQ ""For a detailed analysis of how a single striker became the norm throughout soccer, you had better read Jonathan Wilson's excellent new book about tactics.""--Sunday Telegraph ""This is a masterful piece of research and lives up to the claim to be nothing less than 'a history of soccer tactics.' Fascinating.""--Scotsman ""This must surely go down as one of the most revelatory sports books of the year, as well as one of the best, who would have thought that a book charting the history of soccer tactics and strategy, from the 1870s to the present day, could be so engrossing and entertaining.""--Scotland on Sunday