Book review: Zonal Marking by Michael Cox

In an era where football debate rarely strays from partisan waffle or endless VAR discussion, Michael Cox has produced a deeply refreshing, highly analytical and colourful read in Zonal Marking that gets straight to the point.

Although the ESPN football writer confesses he has somewhat unintentionally written a history of European football from 1992 to the modern day, that tag does not do the book justice.

If Zonal Marking acts as a literary embodiment of a European football museum, Cox is the whimsical curator guiding his readers through eras dominated by Holland, Italy, France, Portugal, Spain and Germany.

Cox combines cold and calculated tactical dissections of the systems which have shaped modern football with intriguing storylines and revelations.

Do you know, for example, what drove Johann Cruyff to leave Ajax for Barcelona? Are you aware of Italy’s Coverciano, one of Europe’s greatest universities for football coaching? Or that Pep Guardiola predicted Andres Iniesta was destined for greatness when the two met for the first time at the U15 Club World Championships?

Cox partitions his detailed analysis of European football tactics into digestible sections, with chapters dedicated to the Dutch innovation of playing out from the back, France’s water carrier role and Spain’s tiki-taka approach among others.

A journalist’s lack of football knowledge is often horrendously transparent, as Cox alludes when suggesting TV pundits “fall back on old caricatures” during major tournaments when not familiar with the teams playing.

But in Zonal Marking, readers know they are in good company with Cox, evidently a writer with exceptional tactical understanding but also the explanatory abilities to make his knowledge accessible to everyone.

He is adept in simplifying complex tactical approaches, stating “that was the Dutch way: the number nine sacrificing himself for the number ten” and “Italian sides weren’t about playing their natural game; they were about stopping opponents from playing theirs”.

A book so heavily guided by the evolutions of formations had the potential to be repetitive and lecturing but Zonal Marking avoids that.

Every piece of analysis is illuminated by a comical anecdote or a commentary of an iconic match.

Cox underpins a clash of footballing cultures in his retelling of Spain’s defeat of Germany in the 2010 World Cup and brings the concept of gegenpressing to life with an ingenious description of a Borussia Dortmund goal against Arsenal in 2012.

There are tributes to the sport’s greatest personalities from Cruyff to Arrigo Sacchi to Jurgen Klopp.

A personal favourite is his capturing of Zinedine Zidane’s gravitas in the line: “One day before an away trip Zidane was late for the team coach and no one could get hold of him. A furious Ancelotti ordered the driver to leave without him only for the centre back Paolo Montero to rush to the front of the coach and declare they weren’t leaving without their talisman.”

Those in love with the game for the game itself and not the playground antics which unfold off the field can find solace in Cox’s Zonal Marking, a football book for the football purists.

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