Tiki-Taka is the most popular tactic in soccer among soccer fans. It requires a lot of skillful players to make it work, but when it’s working for a team, it’s one of the most effective tactics ever.
What is Tiki-Taka? Tiki-Taka is a style of soccer that utilized short and quick passes, with the goal of holding possession and eventually scoring after a long, but quick build-up play. Tiki-Taka is all about retaining and recycling possession of the ball.
What Is Tiki-Taka?
In its purest form, Tiki-Taka means playing a short, quick, ball retention focussed game with high pressing when the ball is lost.
And while that may not sound too difficult, the fact that it has been almost impossible to replicate to the standards that Barcelona achieved from 2008-12 should give some indication of how hard a philosophy it is.
First coined in 2006 by Javier Clemente, the then Atletic Bilbao coach, but brought into the public eye by Spanish commentator Andres Montes, Tiki-Taka means “light, quick steps”.
When fans now think of a team playing a Tiki-Taka style of game, the immediate thought is that a team is playing fluid, incisive soccer to a high standard.
Keeping the ball fantastically well, teams playing this form of soccer usually have over 60% possession, and when the ball is lost, do absolutely everything to regain possession as high up the pitch as possible.
What Tactics Are Best For Tiki-Taka?
Tactics can be vital to the success of any team, utilizing the players available into a coherent system.
And while the usual tactic for a good Tiki-Taka team is usually a 4-3-3 that utilizes a false 9, the very nature of this form of soccer means that player movement is so rapid that the team shape evolves around the ball.
Starting out in a 4-3-3 formation, the ball is passed quickly between players making use of lines of sight to always have at least one or two options for the next pass.
Because Tiki-Taka is a high-intensity pressing game, players naturally gravitate towards where the ball is, or will shortly be.
Another formation widely used for Tiki-Taka is the 4-2-3-1 tactic. With the extra players in midfield to both press the opponent, and to receive short passes to in the most dangerous parts of the pitch.
With an attacking midfielder behind the striker acting as the false 9, the striker can move horizontally across the pitch to open space up and offer another option for the pass.
The False 9 In Tiki-Taka
The role of the False 9 in this tactic cannot be over-estimated, as the player used in this role starts as a forward, but then drops off into the space in midfield.
This leaves an opponent with two choices, leave the false 9 alone, which gives him space to receive the ball and do immeasurable damage, or go after him, which leaves a large hole in the defense.
Because neither of these options appeals, a defender is trapped, having seen the ball passed in small areas rapidly between three lightning-quick players, the imminent prospect of being carved open can send even the bravest of center-backs mad.
Given that for Barcelona the false 9 would often be Lionel Messi, teams would often tear themselves apart as they tried to combat this floating midfielder.
Even having three players covering the mercurial Argentine was no guarantee of success, Messi would often leave three players standing as he skipped away with the ball.
But more worrying than that, by overloading on the false 9, several other players would be freed up to wreak havoc, the ball passed rapidly between the lines. Players would end up out of position yet again as Tiki-Taka (light, quick steps, remember?) would simply play around them.
Coaching The Tiki-Taka Style of Play
At Barcelona, Pep Guardiola painted lines onto a training pitch to identify specific zones on a pitch, telling his players that there should never be more than three players in one horizontal or vertical zone.
Guardiola ensured that at all times, a player in possession had two options for the next pass, whilst also making sure that only three players, including the one with the ball, could be in any one zone.
There would be players outside this zone to be able to offer new lines and thus overload the opposition, once the ball was quickly moved on, an opposition player would again find themselves up against three more players.
By this point the formation would be harder to see, the opposition being smothered by intricate passes, the more they follow the ball, the more the zone is left behind as the ball is recycled through to another zone.
Further on in the move, Barcelona would be at the opposition area, with multiple attacking options, and an opponent out of position as they desperately try to recover.
Due to a zone having three potential players available, either a scoring chance is created, or the ball is again recycled into another area where yet again three more options await.
Pressing quickly for the ball means that as soon as possession is lost, the team then hounds the opponent for it back. The quicker this happens, and the closer to the opposition goal, the more chance of a goal as the ball is rotated quickly through the zones.
This tactic is exhausting, for both teams, one team is chasing shadows for 90 minutes as it tries to keep some semblance of shape, desperately trying to get hold of the ball.
The team using the Tiki-Taka approach is constantly on the move, the mental focus required is intense, the ebb and flow up and down the pitch is wearying.
The major difference when the teams do walk off the field is that one team has taken a good thrashing, Tiki-Taka played well can score a ridiculous amount of goals.
What Are The Origins Of Tiki-Taka?
The origins of Tiki-Taka can be best traced back to Johan Cruyff, the Dutch soccer player, and manager. Cruyff was quite simply one of the most gifted players ever to walk onto a soccer pitch, and is often cited as the man to perfect “Total Football”.
The essence of Total Football as Cruyff saw it was a complete obsession with keeping the ball and making the most of tight spaces when in possession.
Having played with Ajax in Holland for a major part of his career, Cruyff understood the need to control games through intricate passing, quick movement, and domination of the ball. As Pep Guardiola would later state, “There is only one secret in soccer; you either have the ball, or you don’t”.
Cruyff managed Ajax after his playing career ended, and from 1985 until 1988, brought his ideas to a young, technically gifted squad.
It didn’t hurt that he was revered as a near god-like figure at the club, nor did the fact that Ajaxs’ prestigious youth academy consistently produced players capable of playing quick, technical soccer.
From 1988 until 1996 Cruyff managed Barcelona, and brought his soccer philosophy with him, transforming the Catalan club into a real force again.
At the club was a young Pep Guardiola, and he embraced the theories behind Total Football, instinctively understanding the need for a team to retain possession.
Guardiola honed and refined these ideals as he took his first steps into management, always holding to the ideas of recycling the ball, player movement, and high pressing.
Tiki-Taka Under Pep Guardiola
Eventually, Cruyff left Barcelona, and a period of transition ensued. Guardiola moved on, always learning, and moved into management himself in 2007 with the Barcelona B team.
Less than a year went past when Guardiola was asked to take over with the first team, and he quickly went about transforming the team, bringing in his vision for Total Football, the precursor for Tiki-Taka.
Several factors converged at the same time to help both Guardiola and the club as a whole. Firstly, as a student of Cruyff, Pep had an elite education in how to play soccer the right way, and secondly, upon taking over at Barcelona, Guardiola had La Masia to plunder.
La Masia, the famed Barcelona youth academy, had an extraordinary crop of players coming through at that time. Whereas one team may have to play direct soccer or have to tailor their style of play based on the players available, La Masia produced small, quick, technically excellent players.
Given that Guardiola wished to play soccer through a high pressing, short passing, quick movement-based formation, La Masia was a dream come true.
The emergence of players such as the great Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Sergio Busquets, and Gerard Pique, gave Guardiola an immediate advantage.
Technically excellent, with lightning-fast passing ingrained, many of them diminutive, which made playing a more robust system of soccer unrealistic, this group of teens had played soccer together for years already.
The players were receptive to Guardiolas’ philosophy, and they were hungry for success, Barcelona suddenly had a team capable of playing the way the coach had always dreamed of.
Well Performed Tiki-Taka = Dominance
With this group, and with key players already in the team such as club captain Carlos Puyol, Barcelona quickly began to dominate teams both domestically and internationally.
From 2008 when Guardiola took over until he left in 2012, Barcelona won three La Liga titles, two Champions Leagues, and a host of domestic cups. Lionel Messi rapidly became the best player in the world, arguably, the best player ever.
Because many of these players were Spanish, the national team benefitted too, and after years in the wilderness, Spain won the European Championship in 2008 and retained it in 2012.
A World Cup would also be lifted by Spain in 2010, a period of international dominance rarely seen before or since.
It was while Spain were beginning to play in this way that the term Tiki-Taka was coined by Spanish commentator Andres Montes, bringing the term to a world-wide audience, and the moniker stuck.
Total Football had become Tiki-Taka.
