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Rating: Technical and Tactical History of Football in 5 Matches (and digressions on culture, politics, society, and other trivia chosen for you by the reviewer’s sensitivity)
Chapter I
(where it is told how in Albion a millennial recreational activity was transformed into Sport and how the Offside rule generated the first tactical-technical breakthrough)
The roots of what is the world's most followed (but not the most practiced) sport are lost in the mists of time, which is to say more or less since the human being rationalized that certain activities could be used in a playful way and not just in a practical one. Various nations (something that brings more than a smile as many of these at the time of the supposed "invention" did not formally even exist) claim its paternity: Greece, China, Japan, France, Italy (here a quick excursus), but if inventing and/or discovering means understanding what is taking shape and sharing it with the rest of humanity (for example, the discovery of America should not be attributed to the Vikings of the 10th Century C.E. nor to Christopher Columbus in 1492 but rather to Amerigo Vespucci at the end of the '400s), the merit of having "created" Football must be attributed to the English who, with the foundation of the Football Association on October 26, 1863, codified the first 14 rules (December 8 of the same year) later increased to 17: the organism responsible for their preservation/modification (International Football Association Board) was created only in 1886. In the next 4 chapters, we will have the chance to talk more in-depth about the spread of the sport, beyond the Channel, and the rise of various national and international football institutions, but for now, until 1930, we will remain in Albion.
In reality, despite the introduction of the first rules, the birth of the first clubs (the oldest is Sheffield F.C., 1857), and the first competitions (first among all the "FA Cup", 1872), the game remained quite undefined and tactically disordered at least until, in 1926, the rule of "offside" was definitively clarified: the event triggered a real revolution forcing various coaches to create and apply the first real modules in the History of Football, among which one, in particular, emerged and took the lead, namely the "System" (or "WM") devised by Herbert Chapman, coach of Arsenal F.C. between 1925 and 1935. With the "WM" (a term used for the shape "drawn" on the field by the players), the role of the "Fullback" was born, along with the first real concept of "marking" and the use of the "diagonal". Small digression: in the 1930s, in Switzerland, an original and "avant-garde" "interpretation" of the "System" gave rise to the "Verrou" (the first germ of the "Catenaccio") and the introduction of the "Sweeper" (I mention it now because I will not talk about it anymore but Nereo Rocco and Helenio Herrera I had to honor them somehow).
Chapman left his mark not only for tactical merits but also for the accolades (5 times English champion, 2 “FA Cups” and 4 "Charity Shields") won, curiously, with the London team but also with the team he defeated in the final "pretext" of the review: Huddersfield Town F.C.
April 26, 1930, Wembley Stadium (London, GBR): Arsenal F.C.-Huddersfield Town F.C. 2-0 (Match Report)
This match gave Arsenal its first title in history, in front of a crowd of 90,000 people (not bad for those years...), but beyond this, it went down in history because, for the first time, the two teams decided to enter the field side by side (to pay homage to coach Chapman who, as mentioned, coached both clubs), and for a strange appearance during the first half: and also for being the best possible technical expression (which is known, without good players no formation, not even then, was winning regardless) of the "WM".
Perhaps I should talk a bit about the '20s and the '30s to give a better context, but for reasons of space, I will do so in the next chapter because while in England the "System" reigned, simultaneously or almost, countermeasures were already emerging in Italy and in Mitteleuropa—but that is, in fact, another story.
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