BOOK REVIEWS

Thou Shall Not Pass: The

Anatomy Of Football’s Centre

Half by Leo Moynihan (Sportsbookofthemonth.com price: £12.99, saving £4 on rrp)

WHEN asked why he didn’t go thundering into tackles, the great AC Milan defender Paolo Maldini replied that, in his view, if he had to make a tackle, it meant he had made a mistake. So perfect was the Italian’s reading of the game that he rarely got his shorts dirty.

If football fans could construct the perfect centre half he would undoubtedly be blessed with Maldini’s anticipatory senses, but the ideal central defender would also be an imposing figure, a solid physical specimen who made life difficult for opponents in the air and on the ground.

Moynihan’s Thou Shall Not Pass

is a celebration of the art of defending, as important to any team’s success as putting the ball in the back of the net. As the former Leeds manager Don Revie insisted: if you don’t concede, then you can’t lose.

Revie was fortunate to have the epitome of a centre half at his disposal: not only was Jack Charlton as hard as nails he was fast, though unlike Maldini, he enjoyed a tackle.

When it came to selecting his era’s finest central defender, Charlton had some competition: Frank McLintock at Arsenal, Billy ‘Caesar’ McNeill at Celtic and Bill Shankly’s Colossus, Ron Yeats.

As Moynihan points out, the centre half was often derided for being nothing more than a stopper, but this quartet could play a bit too. Later, centre halves such as Terry Butcher and Roy McFarland continued in the Jack Charlton tradition, while those fascinated by the art of defending admired the likes of Italy’s Giancinto Facchetti and Claudio Gentile, even when they committed the most outrageous fouls.

The age of the modern, more cultured centre half dawned with the emergence onto the international stage of Franz Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore: solid, classy defenders who were not built like the side of a house; Alan Hansen would follow in the pair’s footsteps.

More recently, we’ve been fortunate enough to see the central defender’s role fine-tuned by several players who were rock-solid, fast, clever and well-versed in the dark arts: Nemanja Vidic was a brilliant footballer, as were Tony Adams, John Terry, Carlos Puyol and, outstanding for a comparatively short man, Fabio Cannavaro.

Two of the greatest defenders have performed more recently: Vincent Kompany, an exceptional defender and leader, accolades that also apply to Virgil van Dijk.

A book examining the pivotal role of defending was long overdue and those who agree will enjoy Thou Shall Not Pass.