After Arthur's excellent idea to start a thread on football articles, I thought I'd start a thread on football books.

What do they have to do with performance? It varies fronm book to book, with some having a lot more content relating to performance than others.

I was recently in England. To go into a bookshop there it was an absolute pleasure for Australian students of the game of football. They have more books on football than all other sports put together in almost any English bookshop. Surprisingly, there is a paucity of books on coaching football though.



Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough - Duncan Hamilton

This is a very interesting and entertaining book. If you don't have a sense of humour you won't enjoy it as much as some others. It is simply the funniest football book I've read. Why? Because Clough is such a great character.

He is probably England's most successful coach. He wasn't greatly into tactics and technique or killing his players on the training track. Clough was good in the way they don't instruct you in coaching courses. His assistant, Peter Taylor, and Clough were a brilliant combination. Taylor was great at spotting talent to develop. Clough motivated them. None of this Dutch tactics and technique for him.

Clough told players," Go out there and play football."

"Express yourself," he said. "Execute a great pass or beat a player". He hated long ball, claiming he could train monkeys to do it better than some First Division teams!!!

If players didn't play well , he would boot then where the sun doesn't shine. For Clough it was a question of how hard and when to boot. He reserved punches to the stomach for Roy Keane and Stuart Pearce.

Clough assaulted spectators of his clubs, was an alcoholic, made Duncan Hamilton drink glasses of scotch in the morning before he would give him a press conference, was a brilliant player himself, gave journalists endless 'gold dust,' publicly called all club officials, presidents etc, as useless nobodies who want to see their names in the paper, was totally immodest, claimed he would have won a World Cup if England had employed him as coach, he was conceited, the list goes on............

He played for England briefly before injury ended his career, took Derby County to win the First Division from nowhere and took Nottingham Forest to two successive European Cup victories.

What is more Clough achieved success with much smaller financial resources than his opposition. He and Taylor bought players when they were nobodies, or disgruntled at a club, then turned them into champions.

I'd certainly recommend this book.


Edited by Decentric: 15/11/2011 05:21:57 PM

AJAX BARCELONA CRUYFF HB Dorp Van Barend
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AJAX-BARCELONA-CRUYFF-HB-Dorp-Van-Barend-/220894799882?pt=AU_Non_Fiction_Books_2&hash=item336e5b280a

For me the definitive book of football. Decentric the biggest critic of the KNVB is Johan Cruyff (bigger even than Judy Free)and now he has Barcelona as his jewell in the crown he has been ramming it down their throats even more.

Has recently made significant changes to the Ajax development system now he is on the board of directors.

A fantastic insight into the man and some of his football philosophies, tactics and player development.

Quote:

'Football consists of different elements: technique, tactics and stamina. Stamina I have and technique I've always had. There are some people who might have better tachnique than me and some people who mat be fitter than, me but the main thing is tactics. With most players' tactics are missing. In the tatcical area, I think I just have more than most players. You probably can't taech personal tactical insight. At most, if a person has some, you can perhaps influence it a little bit. It's vewry hard.'

Page 10.

It is great to hear his philosophies but what is often overlooked is how long it took for his philosophies to create the barca we know today.

Sure about 20 years, but having said that Cruyff will tell you look at what Ajax acheived in the past, no different to Barcelona today. Therefore the player development system can be replicated.

While he will say the development program of Ajax today has lost it's way. Too much regimentation, too much sports science, too many early developers etc. Now he is about changing that.

I've got a few that I plan on reading after exams:

Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics by Jonathan Wilson;
Soccer Men by Simon Kuper; and
Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski.


Should be good!

football for the brave by john cartwright, if you cant afford a tenner then try the blogs
http://keeptheball.wordpress.com/

They are all excellent books.

I intend to give a brief review of each one.

It would seem to me that one of the problems in Australia is people are not willing to go the distance to put in the hard yards. at the first sign of the unexpected they throw there hands in the air and call for a revolution.
to follow Cruyff you must be willing to stay the course until you get the result i don't think Australian football is mature enough in its attitude to do that yet.
Maybe one day.:cool:

As far as I know krones3, and I have a couple of pretty good first hand sources, thats what Ange Postecoglou is about replicating the Cruyff philosophy of football.
In Melbourne we have one club that is attempting to develop juniors on this model and philosophy. And yes they are ridiculed by every other club, yes their results in win/loss is pretty poor but they usually have over 60% possesion in every game. The proportion of players selected to zone and state representative teams very high for the size of the club while the attempts at poaching these players by other junior players borders on the absurd.

But I congratulate them they don't care about match results only player development, they don't care about winning now, they don't care if their best players leave all because they beleive in the program, their playing philosophy and its long term results. It does get easier though the longer you do the program.

Edited by Arthur: 19/11/2011 08:49:31 AM

One Fantastic Goal: A complete history of football in Australia by Trevor Thompson


This book literally covered everything from the 1850 - 2006. Not only that, it covered very well. It was enthralling reading, taking you through from national team politics in the 20's, the football civil war in the 50's and 60's, every single WC campaign in depth and then finally the happy ending in 2006.

Very strongly recommend.

Thanks fantastic blog

Currently reading The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football by David Goldblatt.

Excellent read, really comprehensive look at the history of football all over the world and in such great detail.

Soccernomics Simon Kuper and Stefan Sczymanski




It uses stats to show which team is the best in the world and contravenes the axiom that national team's success is usually based on population, affluence and experience.

For those people who have disputed that stats are relevant to football, Soccernomics delves into how Arsene Wenger is leading the field in comprehensive match stats and that other top coaches are copying him.

I think in this book it explains how Alex Ferguson sold Jaap Staam because according to his stats he was making less tackles per game than he was in previous seasons. Fergie unwittingly used incorrect data. Consequently he sold Staam to an Italian club where he had unmitigated success!!!!!:lol:

I found this book to be particularly interesting. Localstar would probably find it boring as he found Inverting The Pyramid uninteresting, whereas the rest of us usually find it fascinating.:?

I found it particularly interesting when Soccernomics explained in detail the process (or lack of) that professional clubs, EPL ones in particular, usually hire new coaches. Often fans and club administrators who know nothing about professional football coaching, have considerable influence in the decision making process. I found this to be particularly humorous.

If one enjoys figures which relate to football, one would probably enjoy this book.



Edited by Decentric: 21/11/2011 09:12:07 AM

Interesting the price is $42+.

I have one site where I can usually obtain books for about $14-15 Aust.

The Ajax development system has previously been lauded as exemplary by the KNVB. I wonder what changes Cruyff wanted to see?

Inverting The Pyramid Jonathon Wilson

I thought this was a fantastic book.

It goes through an evolution of tactics.

Of course a I was interested in Rinus Michaels' influence on the game.

Valery Lobanovski, the great Ukrainian coach , who like Michaels , coined the concept of pressing and tried it with unmitigated success on the pitch. He was also the first eminent coach to use stats. When I read his individual player analysis sheets , he had a lot of similar stuff to what I'd decided to record.

Helenio Hererra's contribution to football was interesting.

Arriga Sacchi was fascinating too.

The contributions of Charles Reep and Charles Hughes was interesting.

Once again fellow forum member, Localstar, found it uninteresting as he said he knew the evolution of tactics in football before he read it.
Other than him, everybody else I know who has read Inverting The Pyramid, has found it a great football book.

The Best books I've read are:

Inverting the Pyramid - Jono Wilson - as mentioned before. Brilliant book.
The Principles of Brazilian Soccer - Jose Thadeu Goncalves
Coaching the 4-3-3 - Massimo Lucchesi
Coaching Soccer - Bert Van Lingen
The Coaching Philosophies of Louis van Gaal and the Ajax Coaches - Henny Kormelink and Tjeu Seeverens

any of the books from lucchessi are good, last one i read was his pressing book.
bert van lingen is a good read
Soccer Modern Tactics, Alessandro Zauli is good
The Italian Job, Gianluca Vialli and Gabriele Marcotti good perspective on football
team building rinus michels
Soccer's 4-4-2 System Marco Ceccomori good for the back four

when i get time i will post my book list

I think most of the books covered above are mentioned in this article:
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/12/06/book-recommendations/

I am pleased with this.Thanks for sharing this post.

The Football Men Simon Kuper


This is an excellent book because it includes so many players and coaches, it covers a diversity of issues and scenarios in different countries.

There is a lot of information about football in this one book, a bit like Inverting The Pyramid.

I also like Kuper's dry sense of humour.


This book also adds how Arsene Wenger's use of data and stats assisted him to be ahead of his coaching peers in talent identification. This enabled him to sell a player for maximum price when the player was just past his best years. It also enabled him to identify young players in teams who were performing particularly well in a particular facet of the game, like ground covered for a defensive midfielder.


He was able to recruit Van Persie, Thierry Henri and Patrick Viera a little before they peaked. If he had recruited them at their peak, he wouldn't have been able to afford them with Arsenal's budget restrictions.

Wenger was able to gain good results in terms of money spent compared to bigger clubs with more money. Moreover, Arsenal were able to operate in the black whilst still enjoying success.

It also suggests that Wenger's opposition are catching up by now using the same data in 2010. The contention is that it will be more difficult for him to stay ahead of the field from now on. He also borrows heavily on American stats used in baseball and gridiron.

Edited by Decentric: 28/12/2011 07:45:10 PM

The Professor: Arsene Wenger Myles Palmer


This book was written by an Arsenal journalist. There were some interesting points, but at times it was tedious with too many accounts of particular games in specific seasons.

Palmer had insight into the club before Wenger's tenure and during his current tenure.

I probably learnt more about Wenger from brief analyses of him and his methods in Simon Kuper's Socernomics, Why England Lose and Other Curious Football Phenomena and The Football Men.




Edited by Decentric: 28/12/2011 07:55:39 PM

From what I've seen of Bert Van Lingen's book with some pages reproduced on the internet, it is an excellent coaching book if one hasn't done an Advanced FFA coaching course , or a European coaching course.

The good thing is that one can save a lot of money. It is certainly better than some of the old FFA community coaching courses.

Cloughie Brian Clough

Another gem of a book.

Brian Clough is just so entertaining and funny. He even describes himself as conceited, arrogant and big-headed!!!

With his mate Peter Taylor as his assistant, he was probably close to a coaching genius. He was no sound tactician or theoretician, but an incredible motivator and manager of men. Although not quite as good a Taylor, he was an astute identifier of embryonic football talent.


Clough hated long ball football. He derided many other English coaches as unfit to coach. Clough greatly admired Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger. The only flaw Clough could find in the latter was his unwillingness to discipline his players, which resulted in poor disciplinary records for Arsenal players. Wenger could benefit from reading Clough's views on why he was iron fisted with his players accepting refereeing decisions.


Clough was also against the modern phenomenon concept of elite academies in clubs. he contends he was just a pretty ordinary player at 15, yet he developed to become one of the best professional forwards in England as a senior. He prefers all players to benefit from sound coaching, not just the elite.

Clough also claimed that Terry Venables has been the only decent manager of England since he was overlooked himself in the early eighties.










Edited by Decentric: 7/2/2012 01:13:33 PM

Arsene Wenger: The Biography Xavier Rivoire


A decent account of Wenger's whole life in football, not just at Arsenal.

He has always been ready to sell players at around 30. Most players he has sold have not played as well at their new clubs as they did at Arsenal.

Wenger spends most of his spare time looking at videos of players from around the world. Not anywhere near as many players have gone through the Arsenal development system as Barcelona.

Wenger also considers that players ability to win the ball deteriorates as they age. According to Wenger their distribution qualities may keep improving as they play into their thirties though.







Edited by Decentric: 14/3/2012 05:28:33 PM

Brilliant Orange David Winner

This is an excellent book, particularly for me because of KNVB training.

it is very interesting to read that the Dutch don't rate goal sneaks, no matter how many goals they score, if ,
they don't contribute to decent team combination play.

It also elucidates the dichotomy of traditional Dutch supporters. Those who abhorred the way Holland played in the 2010 WC final against Spain,condemning the antics of Van Bommel and De Jong, and, on the other hand an acceptance of pragmatic football by a new generation of Dutch fans.







Edited by Decentric: 1/6/2012 04:46:31 PM

Decentric, I never said that I found Inverting the Pyramid "uninteresting". I actually said that it was an excellent summary of the history of coaching and tactics. I added that I was already familiar with a lot of that history.. but that, of course, didn't mean that the book was uninteresting.

As chips used to point out, you have a way of willfully misquoting people in order to underline your own position....;)

KVNB coaching u8, u10, u10 by Tino Stoop.(reedswain publishing).

How to use the circuit model to coach young players, used to use it alot when i coached 24 u7 and then u8 a few years back.
Setup different exercises/conditioned games and move the players around every 15-20 mins. The kids get to know the exercises and need very little supervision after a few weeks. As a coach you move round the whole groups coaching and demonstrating as required.

This is my favorite football book, absolutely fantastic.

I also highly recommend "Football against the enemy" by Simon Kuper and "You'll win nothing with kids: Fathers, sons and football" by Jim White. The latter is especially good if you are coaching or have ever coached your own son or daughter. It's a more uplifting version of that classic, "Fever Pitch".

Thanks for clarifying the point I made.

I thought it was interesting that you didn't find the book to be like most of the rest of us who read it. Your prior knowledge to reading the book is/was very impressive if you already knew about lots of the globally acclaimed, eminent coaches and who coined what.

I apologise if I misquoted you. Your perceptions of various football phenomena are often different and thought provoking. :) It has also positively effected a few facets of my football coaching.
I've privately trained a few players who have gone on to bigger things in the past. In doing so we focused a lot on receiving hard hit and difficult bouncing balls, which you thought was missing from our Community Football Program, although somewhat addressed juggling in pairs.
I haven't quite addressed this sufficiently in my coaching practices, other than recommend to players they practice against walls at home, or against walls at various clubs/grounds/venues where we conduct coaching. Your suggestion was sage.

Moreover, suggesting we are /have been spending too much time on flashy ball techniques, as opposed to more functional aspects of the game, is also true. What we are trying to do, is attract people to learn something different, because some of the stuff we do is not being coached almost anywhere else in this very small state. By kids trying to master some advanced ball techniques in dribbling and turning, they are inadvertently improving more functional aspects of their ball control. Many kids are also telling me that in various clubs their club coaches discourage them from doing tricks. We encourage it at the right time and part of the pitch in games.

Although we have a lot of common ground, our local FFA staff coaches totally agree with you.


I have no definitive position in response to the book, compared to others.

In relation to some other forums I used to participate in, some of the prevailing perceptions about Australian football were/are bizarre, spurious and incongruous. When I participated on them I may appear to have promulgated views different from a prevailing, enigmatic, misplaced norm, arrived at through blissful ignorance.






Edited by decentric: 18/6/2012 10:52:31 AM

Soccernomics
Simon Kuper & Stefan szymanski


Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport