Jonathan Wilson (2) (1976–)

Following the football trend I picked this up recently in my local Waterstones, based entirely on the fact that it is written by Jonathan Wilson. Wilson is a football journalist who works mainly for The Guardian and a man who's work I greatly admire. He is also the editor of The Blizzard, a football quarterly that he set up to allow journalists to write about the things they want to about football in depth without the overbearing eyes of newspaper editors. It is a great publication with pieces from football writers from all over the world, covering all aspects of the game you don't normally see in the newspaper. You won't for example read about the latest kiss and tell story thankfully.

Wilson is very sharp when it comes to the wider world of football and also something normally overlooked, tactics. In this book he picks 10 significant matches from the England archives and delves into them, looking at what actually happened, why it happened and the fall out there after. He avoids the obvious games in most cases, for example the game from 1966 he looks at is England Vs Argentina.

His writing style is very easy going and crams in a lot of information in without coming across as superior in anyway. I have to admit that the earlier games, although interesting were a bit lacking for me. I think this is mainly because I don't know that players involved. The tactical progression or lack of over the decades is particularly fascinating.

Where the book really comes alive for me is during the modern game from the 80's onwards as I can remember the games involved. Discussion about Euro '96 and Italia 90's in particular are highlights. Personally I would have liked to see a game from the reign of Sven and Capello being tackled from a tactical point of view. I assume the Capello was omitted because at the time of writing the World Cup in South Africa hadn't yet happened. Sven being left out is probably because the time was unremarkable from a performance and tactical stand point.

I am looking forward to getting some of Wilson's other books, especially Behind the Curtain which covers football in eastern Europe.… (mehr)