Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Inverting the Pyramid

  • The History of Football Tactics
  • By: Jonathan Wilson
  • Narrated by: Damian Lynch
  • Length: 18 hrs and 51 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (295 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Inverting the Pyramid

By: Jonathan Wilson
Narrated by: Damian Lynch
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

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
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Expected Goals cover art
Intensity cover art
Pep Guardiola cover art
The Price of Football, Second Edition cover art
Quiet Leadership cover art
Pep’s City cover art
Three Nights in August cover art
Alex Ferguson: cover art
One Last Strike cover art
The Yankee Years cover art
How to Be a Football Manager cover art
The Quality of Madness cover art
Collision of Wills: Johnny Unitas, Don Shula, and the Rise of the Modern NFL cover art
Unfit and Improper Persons cover art
A Game of Extremes cover art
K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches cover art

Featured article: Best football audiobooks


Whether you belong to a football club, are a Premier League fan, or simply just interested in learning more about the football world, our list of the best football audiobooks captures what draws so many people to makes ‘the beautiful game’. Here’s our list of the best football audiobooks to hit play on, brought to you by your favourite sportswriters and international football superstars....

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)

What listeners say about Inverting the Pyramid

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    190
  • 4 Stars
    81
  • 3 Stars
    18
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    143
  • 4 Stars
    81
  • 3 Stars
    23
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    159
  • 4 Stars
    67
  • 3 Stars
    18
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

history of football through the lens of formations

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting listen

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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

excellent

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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent overview of the entire history of football tactics

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Football history

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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

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

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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Brilliantly Insightful

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.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Great book but...

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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

excellent in depth footballing history book.

this book talks about the tactics that constantly changed to game and the personalities that did it. Excellent book which has been meticulously researched.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!