Inverting the Pyramid : A History of Football Tactics
Jonathan Wilson ( Orion )
This wonderful book contains loads of interesting facts, quotes and anecdotes.
Jonathan Wilson’s research is phenomenal and, as he guides us from 1872 to 2008, he fills in many gaps in my knowledge. I knew that Valerie Lobanovsky was one of the legends of coaching but I didn’t know he was a 22-year old left winger in the Dynamo Kiev team who became Soviet champions in 1961.
As a schoolboy, Lobanovsky was an outstanding mathematician, and he studied heating engineering at a time when Kiev was a world centre of innovations in computing, artificial intelligence and mathematical modelling.
Historians and authors are often fascinated by the interaction of personality and institutions, so it doesn’t come as any great surprise when Wilson, writing about Lobanovsky, says : “ In him was acted out the great struggle between individuality and system : the player in him wanted to dribble, to invent tricks and to embarrass his opponents, and yet, as he later admitted, his training at the Polytechnic Institute drove him to a systematic approach, to break down football into its component tasks. “
His 1998 Dynamo Kiev side was better than some of the teams who have since won the Champions League. I remember watching them train at Wembley the night before they played Arsenal. As his assistants ran the session, Lobanovsky, the old maestro, stood on the sidelines in his bulky blue stadium coat, never moving, never shouting, just concentrating on his players, seeing everything.
Wilson is very good on W-M, Herbert Chapman, Willy Meisl’s “Whirl”, Nandor Hideguti and the Hungarians, Commander Reep, Charles Hughes and Graham Taylor, and Brazil’s 4-2-4. His comparison of Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan with Fabio Capello’s Milan is illuminating.
Dave Bowen, who managed Wales, said that Alf Ramsey’s genius had been to recognise earlier than anyone else in Britain that if teams played four at the back, the traditional winger was dead.
He also explains Helenio Herrera and catenaccio, and naturally relates how Celtic smashed the myth of Inter Milan’s invincibility. The Lisbon Lions, eleven heroes who were all born within a 25-mile radius of Parkhead, came from behind to beat Inter 2-1 and proved that attacking football had a future.
As millions of football aficionados know, the turning point in Liverpool’s history came in 1973 when they played Red Star Belgrade. That game was a landmark, a watershed moment. As Wilson wisely notes, progress often begins with a defeat.
After a traumatic 2-0 defeat at Anfield, six men met in the Boot Room to analyse what they were doing wrong,. The men were Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, reserve coach Ronnie Moran, chief coach Reuben Bennett, and Tom Saunders, the head of youth development. They tried to figure out why they had lost to Ferencvaros, Athletic Bilbao, Vitoria Setubal and Red Star.That was when Liverpool moved Phil Thompson, originally a midfield player, to centreback, and began to pass the ball out of defence, keep possession, and play a more patient, probing game.
Shankly said, “We realised at Liverpool that you can’t score a goal every time you get the ball. And we learned from Europe, from the Latin people. When they play the ball from the back they play in little groups.”
In the final chapter, Brazil’s Carlos Alberto Pareira talks about a 4-6-0 formation being possible, and former Uefa technical director Andy Roxburgh says, “Six players in midfield, all of whom could rotate, attack and defend. But you’d need to have six Decos in midfield – he doesn’t just attack, he runs, tackles, covers all over the pitch. You find him playing at right back sometimes.”
If you love this kind of stuff, as I do, you’ ll really enjoy Inverting The Pyramid.
My favourite moment in the book describes an incident in training when, following on from the 1974 World Cup, Rinus Michels took Neeskens and Cruyff to Barcelona. The club also had Marinho Peres, a centreback who had captained Brazil against Holland in a notoriously violent game that the Dutch won 2-0.
In Brazilian football, defenders always covered each other and did not play offside. That was their style, their culture, their mindset. In Brazil, a flat back line was seen as stupid. They called it “a donkey line”
When Marinho moved to Barcelona, he struggled to play the Dutch pressing / offside game. A fierce offside trap was an alien concept to him. But he gradually started to adapt and one day in training the back four pushed out perfectly and he thought : Brilliant, I’m finally getting the hang of this !
Marinho said, “I pushed up and we caught four or five players offside. I was pleased, because it was still new to me and I was finding it difficult, but Michels came and shouted at me. What he wanted was for us then to charge the guy with the ball with the players we had spare because they had men out of the game in offside positions. That’s how offside becomes an offensive game.”
I can understand why Michels lost his temper and started screaming at them. If I was a coach, I’d have done the same. I’d have said, “Look, there’s now ten of you – and five of them ! Don’t stop! Just run at them, take the ball off them, and score!”
Anecdotes like this always makes me smile and sometimes make me laugh out loud. The Cruyff remark I always remember was his reply to the reporter who asked. “Johann, why do you play offside?”
He said, “Because it’s a good way to get the ball back. And it means Neeskens only has to run 40 metres, not 80 metres.”
In his prologue, Wilson says, “Premiership football is far more skilful now than it was even ten years ago, but it remains quicker and less possession-driven than any other major league.”
He also says, “Globalisation is blurring national styles, but tradition, perpetuated by coaches, players, pundits and fans, is strong enough that they remain distinguishable. What became apparent in the writing of this book is that every nation came fairly quickly to recognise its strengths, and that no nation seems quite to trust them. Brazilian football is all about flair and improvisation, but it looks yearningly at the defensive organisation of the Italians.”
Verdict : Don’t wait for the paperback. Get this book now and take a break from our parochial, Sky-hyped, star-obsessed football culture. You’ll enjoy 356 thoughtful, readable pages.
French journalist Philippe Auclair turned me onto Inverting The Pyramid. Thanks, Philippe.