Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics

by Jonathan Wilson

Their teams played the game in very different ways, but what they all shared was the clarity of vision successfully to recognise when the time was right to abandon a winning formula and the courage to implement a new one.

it is a much harder thing to impose a vision on a team at national level, where the time available to work with players is so brief, than it is at club level where the involvement is day-to-day.

Man became aware of his being part of a total energy system.’

keep the preferred playing area as large as possible while in possession, and as small as possible while the opponent had the ball.