THE STRATEGY OF SOCCER
Johnny Byrne - Pelham (1965)
Cover Price: 15s (£0.75) 106 pages

I was just moving on to the League scene when the ‘Mighty Magyars’ of Hungary shocked the world with their respective 6-3 and 7-1 victories over England at Wembley and Budapest in 1954. They were sad and distasteful blows – and there were more to follow. Soon after, came the emergence of the South American countries like Brazil and Uruguay who proved to be the equals and, indeed, the superiors of the country generally regarded as the Masters of Soccer.
But we were big enough to learn from disasters. I was lucky enough to be one who was in on the ground floor as British football was caught in a training and coaching whirlwind. The basic skills of the game were given priority attention. Clubs up and down the country realised that many other nations had made enormous progress and were, in fact, leaving the old masters high and dry when it came to the finer arts of the game.
The challenge was answered, and there is no doubt that much was done to improve our standard of play. But there is still much more coaching at school level can do a tremendous amount to give the game an even greater percentage of players who have learned the fundamentals of football.
When I first came into the game, tactics played a much smaller part than they do now. It is no exaggeration to say that our tactical thinking today has improved 100 per cent. But there is still so much more we can do to improve it further. Tactics are important to soccer – and can help sell the game to a more and more demanding public. As a player advances through different levels of competition, tactics play a much greater part. The need today is for thoughtful players. They must look at the game more scientifically.