Michael Cox's switching game: a clear view to the agents in the history of football

Who doesn't remember: Like Ricardo Quaresma in the 2001/02 season against SC Salgueiros with a brilliant long-range shot hit against Varzim SC in the very firs

Michael Cox's switching game: a clear view to the agents in the history of football

Who doesn't remember: Like Ricardo Quaresma in the 2001/02 season against SC Salgueiros with a brilliant long-range shot hit against Varzim SC in the very first Minute, with a classic "trivela", and then two more assists, with the flanks of the right and the left, the Mário Jardel used? A "trivela" is a shooting technique that has cultivated Quaresma, a Effetstoß with the pass, you might say, in the classic football English, without, of course, the appropriate elegance.

Christian Kamp

sports editor.

F. A. Z.

If you are not interested in just for Portuguese football in General, or Sporting Lisbon in Particular, may seem perhaps a little bit special. But an overwhelming level of detail is a trademark in the "switching game" by Michael Cox, and as someone who has donated to the football a certain degree of life time, one can only marvel at the amount of Games Cox, the recalls on the cover photo of a younger Christian Seifert, not only seen, but also has penetrated. The result is, as the subtitle of the book, a history of evolution of modern European football, and who is willing to look at a couple of lengths and lovers know how to Quaresma and his contribution to the championship season of Sporting, engage, will be rewarded with a grandstand court to watch, as football history is made.

The Englishman Cox is a writer for the Online sports magazine, "The Athletic", he has written for the "Guardian". A name he has made for himself with the tactics blog "Zonal Marking" – so the book is called in the original title. His journey through European football as the big Bang of the Modern: in 1992, the introduction of the Premier League, the transformation of the European Cup in the Champions League, the starting point of the merciless Commodification, which has made the game, in the Germany of 1990, a third-Time world champion has become, within a few years another.

"We don't teach a particular System, we will teach you all"

This institutional Revolution, and that the Bosman ruling in 1995, for his part, makes Cox is virtually completely aside, which, at the same time a clear view of what happens on the pitch, the game as such: The coaches and players as agents of the history, national traditions and schools of thought, the tactical developments. The Motto of Gianni Leali, the Director of the Italian training centre of Coverciano in the nineties, the Cox quotes could also be his book: "We do not teach a specific System. We teach you all and explain the advantages and disadvantages of each.“

The can be, from a tactical standpoint, the domination of the Serie A this time, but also to the fact that historically, the winner is not considered Dogma, but Innovation. In the first Moment, it does look a bit constructed, like Cox, the periods in the four year summarizes sections: the Netherlands, Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Germany and England to follow. But in the end it turns out as a principle of order, in which the history adds all-in-all amazing, of course.

Exciting much of what describes Cox is: the dualism Cruyff/van Gaal, the far-left, over the Netherlands and beyond its mark in the game, the methodological foundations of the Portuguese Era, the remind you once again that what was for Other than today, José Mourinho, for once, the legendary Clásicos, in which Mourinho and Pep Guardiola implacable against players far beyond the Tactical and beyond.

Date Of Update: 23 July 2020, 17:20