Inverting The Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics

by Jonathan Wilson

For the three and a half decades that followed, not much changed. In Britain at least, the 2–3–5 remained the default, but that’s not to say that there weren’t variations. Although it would be misleading to suggest there was a wealth of abstract or sophisticated discussion about tactics, in the years leading up to the First World War there was a growing interest in how the game should be played;

Chess with a ball? Charles Alcock would scarcely have recognized it, although he would presumably have appreciated the goal-scoring ability of the center-forward Pedro Petrone, even if he did refuse to head the ball for fear of disturbing his heavily brilliantined hair. Those who were there, though, were enraptured as Uruguay maintained their form through the competition, scoring a total of seventeen goals and conceding two in their four games before beating Switzerland 3–0 in the final. The reaction of the French essayist and novelist Henry de Montherlant was typical. “A revelation!” he wrote. “Here we have real football. Compared with this, what we knew before, what we played, was no more than a schoolboy’s hobby.”

England lost 2–1, but there was an outcry from the soccer establishment. “The one-back game adopted by England is at all times an objectionable feature in club football,” read another report. “But it is questionable if it is sportsmanlike for an international team to resort to this desperate move to keep down the scoring.” Harris, who had captained England in all three of the matches they played in 1906, never played for his country again, and the following year the offside law was changed so no player could be offside in his own half. Once the idea of an offside trap was out of the bottle, though, there was no putting it back, and the years before the First World War saw the ploy become increasingly common.

That was Chapman’s first crisis, and he responded with his first great idea, a recognition that “a team can attack for too long.” He began to encourage his team to drop back, his aim being less to check the opposition forwards than to draw out their defenders and so open up attacking space. By Christmas 1908, Northampton were top of the Southern League; they went on to win the title with a record ninety goals.