‘A wonderful summary of tactical development in European football’ Matthew Syed, The Times

‘A fascinating assessment of football in 2019’ Observer

An insightful, comprehensive and always engaging appreciation of how Western football is rolling out over the last three years by the writer of the much heralded The Mixer.

Continental football has always cast a spell over the imagination. Through the about Zonal Marking: The Producing of Modern Western european Soccer attacking flair of True Madrid of the 50s to the defensive brilliance from the Italians in the 60s and onto the total football of the Dutch in the 70s, the Western european leagues have been where the video game has most progressed and used its biggest techniques forward. And during the last three decades, since the rebranding of the Champions Little league in 1992, that design has continuing unabated, with each main Western european footballing country playing its component in the way the game’s strategies have developed.

From the intelligent usage of space displayed by the phenomenal Ajax team of the first 90s, towards the dominance of the highly strategic Italian league in the past due 90s and onto the technical wizardry of Barcelona’s tiki-taka, the European game is constantly on the reinvent the tactical dimension of the overall game, creating blueprints which both club and national teams around the world make an effort to follow.

In Zonal Marking, Michael Cox brilliantly investigates and analyses the main leagues around Europe over particular time periods and demonstrates the impact each has produced on how the overall game is now played. Highly entertaining and packed full of wonderful anecdotes, this is the first reserve of its kind to consider an overview of modern Western european soccer, and lays bare the amount of the international language of football could be shaped with a nation’s unique identification.