As an avid soccer fan, this book is FASCINATING. The writing is easy to understand, but not boring. This book is meticulously researched and it's clear that Cox enjoys what he is writing about.

A very informative book on the evolution of soccer tactics that reminded me a lot of Jonathan Wilson's excellent Inverting the Pyramid. Cox does a great job explaining concepts and I like how he brought in historical context and shared some biographical details of key players and managers like Johan Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane, and Pep Guardiola that helped shape modern soccer. Zonal Marking manages to succeed in being both information and entertaining and I highly recommend it to any soccer fans looking to gain a further appreciation for the sport and better understanding of soccer tactics.

This is a fantastic book if you live and breathe football/soccer. Cox presents an insanely researched and detailed history of modern European soccer as dominated by the “eras” of seven prominent countries: the Netherlands and Total Football, Italy and catenaccio, France and its star player Zidane, Portgual and the greats (coach Jose Mourinho and goalscorer Cristiano Ronaldo), Germany and gegenpressing, Spanish tiki-taka, and England - whose dominance was a “general summary of the modern European footballing style” with Jurgen Klopp as star manager.

Cox dives into the smallest details that avid fans will know and recognize - differences in squad formation, interpersonal conflicts between coaches, transfers, World Cup and Champions League goal scoring, and more. He integrates football theory with practice, management style with team dynamics, and how a country’s general spirit manifests itself in its football style.

For myself as a casual soccer/football fan, the chapters on my favorite teams and players were enjoyable (Spain and England), but the book was too hefty and in-depth for my taste. It’s a long read at 449 pages, and I found myself most interested in the start and end of each chapter, skimming over the dense analysis in the middle. This would be a great coffee table book or summer read for anyone intensely interested in the sport.

Zonal Marking is a breakdown of the footballing tactics for the major European nations: Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal and Holland. (England is also covered to a lesser extent, although the author argues that they don't have as prominent an identity as the six aforementioned nations, and are in reality an amalgamation of them all.) Each section covers a major period of success for the nations and the influential managers/players during those time periods.

The book is easy for even the most casual fan to follow, as Cox not only breaks down the tactical formations but provides real life examples of them in motion to illustrate his points. It makes for an exciting read: the Dutch section on Total Football with Cruyff vs. Van Gaal and the Spanish section detailing the intensity of Pep's Barca vs Jose's Real Madrid are simultaneously wonderful and ludicrous.

I can't imagine myself having more fun with a book this year. It's a must for the football fan in 2019.

**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Perseus Books, PublicAffairs.**