Inverting The Pyramid

The History of Soccer Tactics

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By Jonathan Wilson

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$21.99

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$28.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around August 14, 2018. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

“An outstanding work the [soccer] book of the decade.” — Sunday Business Post

Inverting 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. Inverting the Pyramid has been called the “Big Daddy” (Zonal Marking) of soccer tactics books; it is essential for any coach, fan, player, or fantasy manager of the beautiful game.
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  • “A wonderful and comprehensive treatment of this important topic. Make sure to secure the revised and updated edition, of course.”
    Stan Veuge, Senior Fellow, Economic Policy, American Enterprise Institute

On Sale
Aug 14, 2018
Page Count
480 pages
Publisher
Bold Type Books
ISBN-13
9781568589190

Jonathan Wilson

About the Author

Jonathan Wilson is the author of eight books, including Inverting the Pyramid, which was named NSC Football Book of the Year in 2009 and won the Premio Antonio Ghirelli prize as Italian soccer book of the year in 2013. His books Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football; The Anatomy of England; and The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper were shortlisted for the NSC award in 2007, 2011, and 2013. Wilson is the founder and editor of the soccer quarterly the Blizzard, writes for the Guardian, FoxSoccer, and Sports Illustrated, and is a columnist for World Soccer. He was voted Football Writer of the Year by the Football Supporters Federation in 2012.

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