In this modern classic, soccer journalist Jonathan Wilson pulls apart the finer details of the beauitful 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. 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, and reflecting on the effects of football's increased globalization and commercialization.