Tiki Taka Football !NEW!
Kathryn Dilorenzo
Tiki-taka or Tiqui-taca ([ˈtikiˈtaka]) is a style of play in football characterised by short passing and movement, working the ball through various channels, and maintaining possession. The style is primarily associated with the Spain national team since 2006 by the managers Luis Aragonés and Vicente del Bosque.[2][3][4][5] Tiki-taka methods were eventually embraced by the La Liga club FC Barcelona from 2009, especially during the era of manager Pep Guardiola; however, Guardiola distanced himself and the club from the style: "I loathe all that passing for the sake of it", stating, "Barça didn't do tiki-taka!", adding, "You have to pass the ball with a clear intention, with the aim of making it into the opposition's goal."[6] Its development and influence goes back to Johan Cruyff's tenure as manager in the early 1990s all the way to the present. The first goal using this system is considered to be the Sergio Ramos goal in the qualifying match for UEFA Euro 2008, played in Aarhus (Denmark) on October 13, 2007.[7] The play involved 9 players making 28 passes with 65 touches over 75 seconds. Spain went on to win the competition.
Earlier tactics that, like tiki-taka, rose to success in their times due to an unprecedented perfection in passing and movement without the ball include the Schalker Kreisel ("Schalke spinning top"), which won FC Schalke 04 six German championships between 1934 and 1942, and the Total Football used by Ajax Amsterdam and the Dutch national team during the 1970s.[8][9][10]
Manager Angelo Niculescu adopted a style that is also considered a precursor of tiki-taka (the Romanian term was "temporizare", which translates to "delaying"). The team would try to keep possession of the ball for as long as possible, using repeated and short passes until a breach in the opposition defense was found. Using this tactic, he transformed the Romanian national team and managed to qualify them to the Mexico 1970 World Cup after a 32 year absence.[11]
The late Spanish broadcaster Andrés Montes is generally credited with coining and popularizing the phrase tiki-taka during his television commentary on LaSexta for the 2006 World Cup,[12][13] although the term was already in colloquial use in Spain's football[14] and may have originated as a critical or derogatory term by then Athletic Bilbao coach Javier Clemente.[15] In his live commentary of the Spain versus Tunisia match, Montes used the phrase to describe Spain's precise, elegant passing style: "Estamos tocando tiki-taka tiki-taka" ("we are playing tiki-taka tiki-taka").[13]
The roots of what would develop into tiki-taka began to be implemented by Johan Cruyff during his tenure as manager of Barcelona from 1988 to 1996.[16] The style of play continued to develop under fellow Dutch managers Louis van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard and has been adopted by other La Liga teams.[16][17] Barcelona's Dutch managers made it a point to promote from their youth system, and Barcelona's La Masia youth academy has been credited with producing a generation of technically talented, often physically small, players such as Pedro, Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Cesc Fàbregas, and Lionel Messi;[18] players with excellent touch, vision and passing, who excel at maintaining possession.[19]
Pep Guardiola managed Barcelona from 2008 to 2012, winning 14 titles. Under his guidance, tiki-taka was established. This was partly due to Guardiola's visionary coaching, partly due to an exceptional generation of players, many of whom had been schooled in La Masia's idiosyncratic style, and partly due to Barcelona's ability to sustain intense pressure on the ball.[20][21] The 2005 update to the offside law was also a contributing factor: by forcing defenders deeper, the law expanded the effective playing area, making players' size matter less and allowing technical skills to flourish.[20][22] The tactic shared Dutch Total Football's principle of high defensive line, positional interchange and use of possession to control the game. Tiki-taka diverged from its Total Football roots by subordinating everything to the pass: Guardiola played a centre-forward as a false nine to keep the ball moving fluidly from different angles; he played the full-backs higher; he selected midfielders in defence to exploit their passing ability; and he forced the goalkeeper to play the ball out from the back.[20]
Raphael Honigstein describes the tiki-taka played by the Spain national team at the 2010 World Cup as "a radical style that only evolved over the course of four years," arising from Spain's decision in 2006 that "they weren't physical and tough enough to outmuscle opponents, so instead wanted to concentrate on monopolising the ball."[23] Luis Aragonés and Vicente del Bosque successfully employed the tiki-taka style with the Spain national team; during their tenure, Spain won three consecutive major titles: Euro 2008 (under Aragonés), the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and Euro 2012 (under del Bosque).[3][24][25]
Pep Guardiola's example of tiki-taka at FC Barcelona is considered the best application of this style after Barcelona won the sextuple in 2009, Barcelona played with a high defensive line usually applying the offside trap with midfielders providing support to defenders to make more passing options available. Defenders are patient, preferring safe pass options looking for midfielders with the ball circulated anywhere on the pitch waiting for a gap to make a vertical pass. The team created most of chances depending on through balls and performing give and go pass usually with Lionel Messi involved in action. Guardiola preferred freedom in the final third of the pitch which was effective as the team created many chances per match.
Sid Lowe identifies Luis Aragonés' tempering of tiki-taka with pragmatism as a key factor in Spain's success in Euro 2008. Aragonés used tiki-taka to "protect a defense that appeared suspect [...], maintain possession and dominate games" without taking the style to "evangelical extremes." None of Spain's first six goals in the tournament came from tiki-taka: five came from direct breaks and one from a set play.[28] For Lowe, Spain's success in the 2010 World Cup was evidence of the meeting of two traditions in Spain's football: the "powerful, aggressive, direct" style that earned the silver medal-winning 1920 Antwerp Olympics team the nickname La Furia Roja ("The Red Fury"), and the tiki-taka style of the contemporary Spain team, which focused on a collective, short-passing, technical and possession-based game.[36]
Analyzing Spain's semi-final victory over Germany at the 2010 World Cup, Honigstein described the team's tiki-taka style as "the most difficult version of football possible: an uncompromising passing game, coupled with intense, high pressing." For Honigstein, tiki-taka is "a significant upgrade" of Total Football because it relies on ball movement rather than players switching position. Tiki-taka allowed Spain to "control both the ball and the opponent."[23]
At the 2011 Women's World Cup, the Japan women's national football team (Nadeshiko) employed a form of tiki-taka under coach Norio Sasaki.[37] They upset hosts Germany and the United States to win the tournament.
The high-profile success of tiki-taka as practiced by Barcelona and the Spain national team in the late 2000s led to a variety of tactics and formations designed to contain and counter the system's domination of ball possession.
Bayern's first-half tactics involved "fake pressing", pushing close to their markers in possession to drive Barça away from danger areas with sheer presence, while conserving their energy by not committing themselves, keeping Bayern's players fresh enough for the second half to mount attacks.[69][70] Though they had managed to outscore lesser opponents, Barcelona's defense was vulnerable, as the absence of center-backs Carles Puyol and Javier Mascherano robbed the team of physical presence to guard against set pieces which Bayern exploited.[71][72] The Guardian proclaimed that "some suggested Bayern would attempt to outplay Barcelona at short passing football, but ultimately it was a perfect recipe of Barcelona's traditional problems: set pieces, counterattacks and physicality, that will lead many to suggest the balance of power has shifted from Catalonia to Bavaria."[67]
"He is the Steve Jobs of football: experimental, brave, a lover of beauty and innovative," Real Madrid legend Jorge Valdano said when the Catalan stood down from his role as Barca head coach in 2012. "He is a reference point in world football and rightly so. Barca have turned their football into a culture."
At the heart of the tactic is possession of the football. The idea is for a team to monopolise possession, using their technical superiority and fluidity of positioning to overcome opponents.
Speaking in 2013, Cruyff reflected: "I think the way Barcelona played, it's a pleasure for everybody who likes football, because the technical qualities are the highest standard and every little child can try to do the technical qualities.
A particularly rich crop blossomed as the likes of Xavi and Andres Iniesta broke into the Barca midfield over the first decade of the millennium, and while they took time to mature, by the time Lionel Messi had broken into the first team, tiki-taka was ready to takeover the game.
Barcelona are the side that has most notably and most successfully employed tiki-taka at club level, incredibly going 317 competitive games without losing the possession battle between May 7, 2008 and September 21, 2013.
Such was the volume of excellent technical players available to La Roja, they came to dominate world football, winning the European Championship in 2008 and 2012, and the World Cup in 2010. It was their Barcelona-based heart, though, that made it possible.
Speaking 2013, when still in charge of Borussia Dortmund, Klopp said: "If Barcelona were the team I first saw playing as a four-year-old - the serenity of football they have, winning 5 or 6-0, I would have played tennis. It's not my sport. I don't like winning with 80% possession. Sorry, it's not enough for me."
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