“It’s clear that regardless of personnel, Ruben Amorim will not shift from his 3-4-2-1 even if the pope were to force him,” notes Paul Vickers. “This got me thinking: has there ever been a case of players actively defying a manager’s instructions, not by downing tools and giving up, but by taking up self-devised, alternative tactics and positions that they consider better suited to their abilities and the needs of the team? And what was the outcome of any such defiant player self-management in terms of the immediate result and then the subsequent fate of the manager and the players?”

A cracking question, to which we’ve received plenty of answers, so let’s proceed directly to The Insubordination Files.

Brazil v Uruguay, World Cup final round, 1950
“In the moments prior to the last match of the 1950 World Cup, effectively the final, the Uruguay coach Juan López informed his team that their best chance of surviving the powerful offensive line of Brazil would come through adopting a defensive strategy,” writes David Ekstrand. “After he left, the captain Obdulio Varela stood up and addressed the team himself, saying ‘Juancito is a good man, but today, he is wrong. If we play...