Inverting the Pyramid cover art

Inverting the Pyramid

The History of Football Tactics

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Inverting the Pyramid

By: Jonathan Wilson
Narrated by: Damian Lynch
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About this listen

Winner of the British Sports Book Awards

Football Book of the Year

The fifteenth anniversary edition, fully revised and updated, of Jonathan Wilson's modern classic.

In the modern classic, Jonathan Wilson pulls apart the finer details of the world's game, tracing the global history of tactics, from modern pioneers right back to the beginning, when chaos reigned. Along the way, he looks at the lives of great players and thinkers who shaped the sport, and probes why the English, in particular, have proved themselves unwilling to grapple with the abstract.

Fully revised and updated, this fifteenth-anniversary edition analyses the evolution of modern international football, including the 2022 World Cup, charting the influence of the great Spanish, German and Portuguese tacticians of the last decade, whilst pondering the effects of footballs increased globalisation and commercialisation.

©2018 Jonathan Wilson (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group Coaching Football (Soccer) Sports Portugal Thought-Provoking Game

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Critic reviews

"One of the most revelatory sports books of the year." (Scotland on Sunday)

"Masterful...it could be the best thing to have happened to English football in years." (Time Out)

"Gloriously readable, eccentric and informative." (Metro)
All stars
Most relevant  
stunning audiobook about formations and history in football. uses changes in back 3 and front 5 to show how history and priority changed the game.

history of football through the lens of formations

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A fascinating trip through the history of football systems. Thorough, well presented. An excellent listen

Interesting listen

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Detailed and extensively researched. Interesting narratives which consider broader historical trends across countries as well as across time.

excellent

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Excellent history of the tactical side of the game, updated recently to include Pep and also Gegen pressing. Well worth a listen.

Excellent

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Meticulous researched and excellently written, Jonathan Wilson provides a thorough overview of football tactics linking trends, styles and systems between coaches and their influences from England in 1800s to Bayern Munich in 2017. I became hooked and longed for more, particularly on the current game. I must admit that I found I had to commit to get through some of the detailed analysis, for example, of Argentinian football in the 1950s, but that is the purpose of the book, a wide-ranging and detailed examination of the world game. With these passages it would have been a highlights package - more thrilling, but lacking the whole picture. The audiobook is well read and I enjoyed Damian Lunch’s voice and style. An excellent listen. Thank you.

Excellent overview of the entire history of football tactics

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An excellent roadmap of football history, and tactical innovations. It gives great insight into how environment and attitude mould footballing cultures

Football history

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Long winded but quite necessary - a good listen but I’ll need to listen again sometime soon

Comprehensive coverage of the tactics of football and an understanding behind the history

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Awesome. Only knocked down on rating due to my own personal opinion regarding not enough modern day tactics; Diego Simeone's Atleti of '17, Redknapp's Spurs of '08, etc. This, however, is due to my age and me wanting more of modern football.

Brilliantly Insightful

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It’s a delightful insight to the history of modern tactics however - as it is a book on football tactics you don’t have the joy of any diagrams (apart from the visualisation in your head - which could be wrong)

I also feel there was too much time spent on the historical elements leaving me sometimes detached by the mention of unrecognisable names

Great book but...

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brilliant record and explanation, very detailed and descriptive with quotes, dates and examples throughout. unique experience for Audible

depth & detail

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