Jonathan Wilson’s new book finds no place for Batty (although his spirit hovers in the background when the author is handing out a well merited slapping to those two Charlies, Reep and Hughes, whose pseudo-scientific data gathering did for English football what Cyril Burt and his IQ tests did for our national education system). In it the author conclusively proved – by data, argument and drawings – that Brazil were the most effective side at the tournament. I have elected to play him at left-back…” In 1970, Batty wrote a book in which he presented an analysis of the styles and tactics of the teams at the Mexico World Cup.
To those of us who grew up reading World Soccer in the 1970s, the word “tactics” will forever conjure up the severe glasses of journalist Eric Batty, portly sage of formations and positional play, whose annual selection of a World XI invariably involved at least one player of whom the writer would observe: “For club and country he is predominantly deployed on the right wing.
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