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- Tiki Taka (Edition #4)
Ah, Sunday, always a good day to rest and watch some football, of course. Let’s Tiki Taka! Oh, you don’t know what that means? And it is not some word out of the jungle? This post is supposed to answer that.
When you first enter this term into Google, there are plenty of results available instantly and many of them are songs. It seems the artists really love this word combination. It sounds exotic!
Well, in this newsletter, we talk about football only and there is no place for discussions about music unless football players are involved. However, I am not going to write about Shakira and Pique this time. So what the hell Tiki Taka is?
Tiki-Taka is a word well-known and widely spread in Spain and describes a style of play born in this sunny country. The Tiki Taka style contains a lot of passes, movement, ball control, and possession. Or by rephrasing it in a simple matter:
Tiki-taka is when a team holds onto the ball a lot during the game. Players try to keep the ball away from the other team by using their skills and moving around the field quickly. The style involves a lot of passes too.
About as dominant as a #passmap can be.
Barcelona's tiki-taka controlled the center of the pitch and dominated territory completely.— 11tegen11 (@11tegen11)
11:12 AM • Feb 7, 2017
It is believed that the term “Tiki-Taka” came from Spanish commentator Andres Montes, during Spain’s 2006 World Cup when he said: “We’re playing with the ball tiki-taka, tiki-taka”.
If you watch a lot of football, you’ve probably seen a lot of Tiki-Taka served by the Spanish National Team of 2006, also, Barcelona in 2009 under Pep Guardiola's control. He didn’t want to accept this fact and even though we all know, including Pep, that Barcelona had a few great years in a row.
Excellent graphic shows exactly how Barcelona players play Tiki-taka against their opponents.
— Eurosport (@eurosport)
12:46 PM • Nov 7, 2015
Many say that the father of Tiki-Taka is Johan Cruyff when he was the manager of Barcelona from 1988 to 1996. And the development of this style continued with other managers such as Louis Van Gaal. And Pep was the one who fortified this style to stay for long.
Tiki-Taka is still played to this day. It seems that Barcelona coach and former player Xavi successfully uses the Tiki-Taka style even at El Clasico games.
Fun fact: Klay Thompson recently said that the Warriors led by Steve Kerr also use Tiki-Taka for playing basketball.
Klay Thompson says Steve Kerr and the Warriors base their game on Barcelona’s tiki-taka 🤝
— B/R Football (@brfootball)
2:24 PM • Oct 19, 2022
Why Tiki-Taka worked for Barcelona?
There are plenty of analyses and versions. I wouldn’t like to analyze it myself, but here is what I’ve discovered.
Mainly, many football enthusiasts agree that Tiki-Taka worked because it was cleverly adopted for small and physically weaker players with great football skills, speed, and sudden movements. One of the greatest examples is Messi backed up by Xavi, Iniesta, and many other top-notch Barcelona players.
These players were raised at the youth academy of Barcelona. Also, talents such as Cesc Fabregas, Pedro Rodríguez Ledesma, Victor Valdes, Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets, Carles Puyol, etc. All of them have been growing up in Barca from an early age.
Most of them also played in Spain's national team and Tiki-Taka was also implemented into tactics successfully. And it really worked!
However, I would add that it isn’t the merits of Barcelona alone, but the whole generation of Spanish players was golden - Sergio Ramos, Casillas, Alonso, Raúl, Fernando Torres, David Silva, and others. Most of them became well-appreciated legends. Them being from different teams they also get involved in Tiki-Taka on Spain’s national team quickly. This is my personal opinion though.
As a result, Spain's national team managed to win Euro 2008, World Cup 2010, and Euro 2012. Moreover, Barcelona with Pep Guardiola won 14 titles from 2008 to 2012.
Critique
Despite the amazing results Tiki-Taka has brought, many football managers, coaches, and players criticized it a lot.
José Mourinho has criticized the Spain national team's sterile tactics, which involve playing without any strikers and relying solely on midfielders.
While others said:
Originally they wanted possession in order to attack and win the game; now it seems to be first and foremost a way not to lose
“Guardiola’s way” has ruined a generation of Italian defenders a bit – now everyone is looking to push up, defenders know how to set the tone of the play and they can spread the ball, but they don't know how to mark.
We played the last few years with homegrown coaches, first Pep and then Tito, and maybe we ended up exasperating our style of play to the extent that we found ourselves slaves to that system, that style. Now that Tata, who comes from outside the club, has arrived, and who shares the same ideas of football, which are based on possession, he is, however, showing us different options. It's very positive because it gives us variety.
What about you, do you like Tiki-Taka?
Counterattack
Many coaches have created their tactics to go against Tiki-Taka, some of them worked others didn’t. Over the years more and more of them started to bring positive results.
When finally in Euro 2016, Croatia's national team won against Spain in the final group game leaving Matadors in 2nd place. In the next phase, Spain played against Italy and lost 2-0. Since then, Spain’s national team managed to win 3rd place at Euro 2020, while the World Cups of 2018 and 2022 ended in the Round of 16.
Will Tiki-Taka be reborn with a new very promising generation of Spanish players? Euro 2024 will answer that question!
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