In this modern classic, soccer journalist 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 examines 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 analyzes 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 football's increased globalization and commercialization.