Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics was Football Book of the Year in 2009 and was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.

Jonathan Wilson, having lived in Buenos Aires, is ideally placed to chart the sport’s development in a country that, perhaps more than any other, lives and breathes football, its theories and its myths. Wilson’s analysis of how Argentinian football developed is punctuated by humorous and unusual human interest stories, such as that of Imre Hirschl, the Hungarian butcher who somehow ended up leading River Plate to two league titles in the thirties, or of Aldo Pedro Poy, who keeps up an annual tradition of recreating the diving header he scored for Rosario Central in a semi-final in 1971.Some of the best parts of the book are about the extraordinary World Cup of 1978 in which Luis Mennotti’s flowing team, led by Mario Kempes and his hair, won the ultimate prize at home against a backdrop of military dictatorship and violence. She is the author of the poetry collection Scars/Stars and co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. It is not merely a sports entertainment, but a way of escape, both mentally and, for many, literally a physical ticket to come out of the slumps.

p. 93: "It soon became special, though: in retrospect, the victory of the Angels with Dirty Faces in Peru was the last great flowering of la nuestra, the elaborate, free-flowing attacking style of play that Argentinian soccer came to see as characteristic of its golden age. El panorama cultural es tan amplio que requiere recapitular la historia, hablar de literatura, de tácticas, de sociología, de globalización, de economía, de atletismo y de identidad.Given my somewhat relevant football career…where I played and reffed in middle school…learning about football style and strategy was super interesting such as ‘la nuestra’ and ‘gambeta,’ though I can see how the book would be a difficult read for those who are unfamiliar/uninterested in the jargon. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to feel that Wilson is less enthused by this material, much of which will be familiar to modern readers and some of which, such as the tactical influence of Marcelo Bielsa, the author has covered extensively elsewhere. A deep and thoroughly interesting dive into the political, cultural and footballing history of a fascinating country. Between an early goal by Juan Ramón Verón – father of Juan Sebastián, later to play for both clubs – and the unavailing late equaliser by Willie Morgan, many other brutalities went unpunished.

His eagerness to gain the full context of the eras of the Argentinian game is also shown with regular digressions into the history of the country’s politics, economy and culture. p. 58: "He played at a time when soccer was played for the glory of love, and was also part of the time when soccer was played for the love of glory. And, as the early sections of the book make clear, football was integral to the early myth-making of a country still trying to form an identity having only gained independence in the 19th Century.

Took me a year to finish this, partly because it’s big and I am lazy, but also partly because there’s a lot of stuff to digest in the book that I wasn’t totally into. Wilson does provide some insights into how the backgrounds and personal lives of these two very different characters have impacted how they play and understand the game, and contextualises Maradona as fitting perfectly into the Argentinian archetype of a ‘pibe’ (an urchin-like figure who overcomes an impoverished background thanks to skill and cunning). In the light of subsequent events, it is amusing to learn that in 1948 the Argentinian football association imported eight British referees to help them raise the standard of officiating.