5 Soccer books that improve coaches understanding of soccer tactics
The secret sauce that all coaches wish they had. The tactical solution that would make opposing teams and coaches fear playing your team. The reality is there’s no secret, sauce, or anything else, understanding and articulating how you want your team to attack or defend against other teams is down to individual philosophies, opposition tactics, and personnel. In this article, we look at 5 books that will help improve coaches’ tactics understanding.
Tactics
Tactics are an important part of the game. So if they are that important, coaches need to have a good idea of what they want as a tactic as well as how to understand opposition tactics and how to counteract them.
The coach’s understanding is useless unless the information, ideas, and philosophy can be effectively communicated to the players.
There are many types of media that offer help for coaches to build an understanding of successful tactics from other coaches or teams. The insatiable appetite for this information can often lead to not understanding the fundamentals that make the tactical methodology successful.
From Counter attacking to high press defending, Building from the back to direct long play and everything in between tactics, styles and the game constantly evolve as a way to counteract tactics and then to overcome those defensive tactics, so a constant circle of evolution.
Trends
There have been tactical trends that coaches and teams have jumped on. Examples such as Barcelona’s Tiki Taka, their 4-3-3 total domination of possession. When Antonio Conte introduced Chelsea’s player to the back three and won the Premier League, the next season 16 clubs followed the same trend, Klopp and Pochettino (Liverpool and Spurs respectively) employed the aggressive defending tactic and so other teams quickly picked up on the trend.
I have spent years as a student of the game, watching, studying asking questions, and developed my own philosophy of how I believe the game should be played. These include tactics that evolve as the game evolves, but I would rather have my own ideas and test them as opposed to copying others, even creating hybrid tactics from other successful models.
In the following five books, I recommend reading, then studying. Ask questions of the tactics and curate your own. Coaches that are newer to the game, don’t think it’s a bad thing to copy. It’s not, it’s a way to understand the game, see what works and what doesn’t. I would suggest though making sure you understand what and how the author is presenting the methodology of the said tactics.
Below are the 5 books that improve soccer coaches understanding of tactics.
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1. Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics
Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson
The first of our 5 books that will help improve coaches’ understanding of soccer tactics is Inverting the Pyramid. Wilson’s book documents the history of football tactics. A good understanding of how we have reached the modern game is to learn how the game has evolved and developed over the years.
Chronicling tactical development from the WM formations of yesteryear to the modern defensive tactic of gegenpressing. Such modern styles have been pioneered by German coaches such as Marcelo Bielsa and Jurgen Klopp.
This book will help you understand the evolution of tactics and formations while giving historical facts along the way. So why include this book in our list? This is like learning to walk before sprinting. Understanding how tactics and systems evolved and developed will allow for a better understanding of more modern methods and their fundamental principles from older tactics.
The book further takes a glimpse at the evolving role of the modern goalkeeper. Today’s Goalkeeper has now shifted from the single task of trying to keep the ball out of the net and punting it upfield, to a player that is the start of the attacking phase.
Available from Amazon in print and Kindle, follow link below.
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2. Zonal Marking: The Making of Modern European Football
The focus on tactical styles prevalent within continental football is actually second to none in my opinion. The book takes readers on a journey that starts with the attacking flair of Real Madrid back in the 1950s, prior to moving ahead to the defensive dominance of the Italians in the 60s.
Additionally, the book looks back at total football. Total football is the Dutch side’s playing method in the ’70s.
Although it lacks diagrams and is probably geared towards the more experienced coach. Overall, this book provides a good in-depth look at European clubs and their trends of tactics that made them successful for a period of time.
The book also includes quirky anecdotes, descriptions, and interesting quotes from important or deep-lying historical matches. Tactical ideas as space and verticality are nicely clarified in this specific piece
Well-structured as chapters go through varying European nations highlighting reasons for their period of success.
I think Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United era, and the Brazilian team that won the FIFA World Cup in 1994, 2002 and World Cup finalists in 1998 should be included. The Manchester tactics under Sir Alex Ferguson was an extremely successful one.
Available from Amazon in print and Kindle, follow link below.
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3. The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines
The Premier league changed the face of English soccer from 1992. Over the years the Premier League would see an influx of foreign players and coaches to influence the game over the next three decades.
The start of the Premier League coincided with the biggest rule change that would affect tactics in modern times. The Goalkeeper was no longer allowed to pick up a pass back from an outfield player.
The evolution of the goalkeeper’s roles and responsibilities from the new rule change, made defenders become more responsible in possession and not have the safety net of a goalkeeper’s hands. In turn, the game got quicker and more entertaining, gone were the 1-nil games that would see players play the ball to the keeper to slow the game down.
Prior to 1992, the 4-4-2 system of play was the common English goto formation. This book documents the seismic shift in tactical principles from the inception to modern times.
Key topics include Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United’s Premier League dominance. The self-anointed Special one’s excerpts from his pragmatic Chelsea, Kevin Keegan’s entertaining Newcastle United, and Claudio Ranieri’s counter-attacking Leicester City.
Does not include diagrams which could be hard for some coaches to watch.
Available from Amazon in print and Kindle, follow link below.
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4. Mastering the Premier League: The Tactical Concepts Behind Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City
Learning the Premier League by Lee Scott
As a two-time UEFA Champions League, Premier League, and multiple La Liga and Bundesliga winners, Guardiola has definitely left a tactical footprint on teams across the European top leagues.
This book draws together the story of how Pep Guardiola honed his tactical principles at La Liga’s Barcelona and Bundesliga’s Bayern Munich. He brought unprecedented levels of success for Manchester City, including the centurion season (City’s hundred-point haul in 2018/2019).
This book has several illustrations that coherently depict several of the principles and nuances of Pep Guardiola’s tactical system. This book can be utilized by new coaches or those coaches with limited experience and knowledge.
Available from Amazon in print and Kindle, follow link below.
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5. Soccer Systems and Strategies
Soccer Systems and Strategies by Jens Bangsbo and Birger Pietersen
This book delves into four systems of play. The 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 3-5-2, and 3-4-3.
After reading the book you can apply a choice of style of play to one of those systems. By getting a better understanding of different styles of attack, how to implement defensive styles, and learning the trending styles characterized by national teams of leagues such as English and Britsh characteristics, Scandinavian, European, Southern American, as well as African and Asian styles of play.
With a good understanding of your tactics, you will then have a better understanding of opposition tactics. How to identify opposition strengths and weaknesses. How to implement tactics to overcome or expose those weaknesses or strengths, and practice ideas to communicate to players.
The book contains sessions and diagrams to help the reader apply tactics in their chosen system.
Available from Amazon in print and Kindle, follow link below.
Summary
Above we have a very small selection of 5 books that will help improve coaches’ understanding of soccer tactics. There are many more books, however, these books give a good starting point to learn about tactics from the beginning days of the sport becoming more organized with rules to modern-day coaching tacticians tactics explained.
We will have further book reviews to cover different types of coaching principles in the near future.
