Has the tiki-taka ‘tiny turbo player’ era come to an end?

Fortitude

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Even Pep has veered away from the principles of his best sides in favour of a very blunt style of play that is in line with what we’re seeing across the board now. Much more emphasis on verticality with large, athletically gifted players has supplanted the more staid, horizontal build up and controlling style that peaked with City winning the league whilst barely using a #9 a few years back. Even Barcelona and Spain have emphasis upon following in behind rapid verticals now, as we saw at the Euros, and with Barca’s new set of wunderkinds.

Real, Bayern, City, Barca, Liverpool are the trendsetters and not one of them plays horizontal over vertical. A consequence of this style shift seems to be the same players who were in their element in very short, quick interlocking passing and moving chains being pushed to the wayside, struggling to keep up with the wave of athletes ushering in this new phase of; once the game opens up and they need to cover larger amounts of space, that extra 2 and 3+ passes that were on the table a couple of years ago are no longer there, forcing them to play a style that exposes, rather than benefits them.

In answer to my own question: if none of the big hitters are playing that way now, it’s clear there’s been a shift. The overarching question is: is that way of playing now consigned to history as a pocket of time, or is this a lull before resurgence?

It makes sense for most to move away from. It is harder to develop and mass produce elite technical, skill first players over athletically gifted players who can play a bit, but is it better for the game itself to have an over abundance of athletes over players?
 
The exception was literally two small players in midfield at Barcelona. And maybe modric, if you want to count him "tiki taka" (I don't). Otherwise, big athletic players in midfield have always been at the forefront.
 
I long for the day when football returns to hoofing it long to the big striker up front
 
Maybe not so much in league play, but at the highest level(UCL), tiki taka kinda died back in 2013 already, did it not?

Even the Barca-side that won the UCL in 14/15 was a more direct side than previous versions.

It does seem to have been sort of a system that relied heavily upon one player though, Xavi, the system declined as he did, it was never the same since, though, perhaps it can make a comeback, probably not anytime soon though.
 
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It’s been dead for a while, Liverpool won the CL and league with workhorses in midfield 6 years ago.

My biggest pet hate about current football though is the cat and mouse game that goes on with goalkeepers and deep defenders to ‘break the press’. In that way I don’t think changing the goal kick rule to allow passing in the box was a good one. They’ve taken some contests out of the game, far fewer long balls from goal kicks. It’s like a lot of the risk on the ball is taken by keepers and defenders while midfielders and attackers act in a formulaic way. I don’t think anyone wants to see that, they would rather it was the other way around.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
It’s been dead for a while, Liverpool won the CL and league with workhorses in midfield 6 years ago.

My biggest pet hate about current football though is the cat and mouse game that goes on with goalkeepers and deep defenders to ‘break the press’. In that way I don’t think changing the goal kick rule to allow passing in the box was a good one. They’ve taken some contests out of the game, far fewer long balls from goal kicks. It’s like a lot of the risk on the ball is taken by keepers and defenders while midfielders and attackers act in a formulaic way. I don’t think anyone wants to see that, they would rather it was the other way around.
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Completely agree. Too much emphasis is placed on goal keepers and defenders to build up play, which has rendered the game slow and unimaginative. We have goalkeepers now who are famed for dawdling on the ball to "bait" the press yet are terrible at their jobs, which is to actually save shots and do the fundamentals. Same goes for defenders.

Tiki taka was never going to last because it relies heavily on a collection of short passing risk averse technical players who constantly recycle the ball. They rarely take the game by the scruff and win it. Barcelona without Messi's ingenuity and decisiveness would have been a blunt force and no surprising that as soon as he wasn't the key attacker anymore, they lacked a punch. Personally I prefer the Barcelona of Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Deco, Guily, Marquez etc. Outstanding players in their own right rather than systematic passers like Xavi and Iniesta.

The dire consequences of Pep dominating football is for all to see. Instead of countering and challenging his system, most managers tried and continue to try to copy him. We now have this homogeneous game in which outstanding individual talents aren't plentiful. No great dribblers, no visionaries. Most players these days are top athletes yet their first touch, reading of the game, passing, shooting and general decision making is abject. If you asked me to reel off top 20 technically gifted players currently playing, I would struggle.

I'm not here blaming Pep for ruining the current game. I blame the flakey managers who lack belief in their own style and have allowed this highly robotic systematic football to permeate the game, probably seeping through the academy.
 
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Hasn’t really been played since Pep left Barca? Enrique doesn't believe in it and Pep didn't seem as fanatical at Bayern about it.
To be honest I wonder if it was so dependent on Busquets/Xavi/iniesta for the system to work at a high level and even then when they met an equally elite good team, they could be contained. Let's be honest, both CL trophies they won are mire din ref controversy and since then there's been more allegations, tiki taka is just seen on the caf as being great because we foolishly tried to be more expansive against Barca and were soundly beaten in two finals.
 
OP is conflating two different things - horizontal vs vertical style of play and focus on the skilled vs athletic abilities in a footballer. They are related but not the same. For example, Scholes was clearly more skill type player but thrived amongst the best counter-attacking sides at United.

I feel its becoming more difficult for pure skilled players to thrive and they need to be also better athletes. They also seem to have become rarer?
 
I don't buy this argument about there being a lack of technical players and that the game is slower. Its the complete opposite. Every team in the PL has a bunch of technically competent players. There are loads of creative players as well. The difference now is that the athleticism of all players is much higher so you have a much harder time beating a man. People have very rose tinted glasses when they look back 20 years or more.

The reason tiki taki worked was because the game was that much slower and you could play with slower, less athletic players who largely only needed to play 5m passes in a highly drilled system. That sort of football gets taken apart now not just because of the physical side of the game but because midfields would just swarm them, turn over the ball and kill them with well executed counter attacks.
 
I think that Pep and this Tiki Taka palava has sucked all the fun from the game so am quite glad that its coming to the end. How many goals have Southampton conceded this season trying to be clever and play it out from the back? Like, why are they even trying to do something they arent capable of doing?
I long for the days of getting the ball to the wingers, who are predominantly skilful and quick and getting them to attack their fullback on the outside. It got fans off their seats and watch any game from the 80s or 90s or even the 00s, the first thing i notice is that the atmosphere felt so much more pure and exciting. A part of that is due to the demographic changing over the years of the sort that attend football matches but also, perhaps a larger part is that fans a bored. Theres no excitement anymore. Watch a championship game where, for the majority of teams the emphasis isnt on tiki taka football and even there the shift in atmosphere is noticable!
 
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Its the only sport where the rules allow one team to stay indefinitely in attack or with ball possession.

Most of the excess physicality comes from this fact. If the game had a bit more stoppages or time limit without a shot on goal, there would be no need for that.

So yes, for the time being, teams will defend in a way that horizontal play won't happen, except for the tiny bits of rest (that would not be needed if there were timeouts or temporary subs).
 
Revival2024 said:
I'm not here blaming Pep for ruining the current game. I blame the flakey managers who lack belief in their own style and have allowed this highly robotic systematic football to permeate the game, probably seeping through the academy.
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The Caf seems to despise Mourinho’s football, though.
 
Pretty much so. I think the possession heavy style was pretty much a solution for big teams to deal with very defensive sides that would sit deep and allow little to no space around their penalty area. Slow, methodical probing and overloads were the main method of overcoming these teams. Now Gegenpressing pretty much changed all that. Teams aren't sitting deep anymore, they are full of fast players who can press for 90 minutes and transition at high speed.

But even this style of play won't last forever. I think Brighton and now other, smaller teams have shown that you can effectively bait a press and open up space behind teams that you can exploit with fast players. I predict that this style will actually become the new meta in football, so we'll probably end up with a demand for players who can play long passes in behind the oppositions defensive lines and fast strikers. If anyone could clone us a Pirlo, that would be ace.
 
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sired44 said:
I think that Pep and this Tiki Taka palava has sucked all the fun from the game so am quite glad that its coming to the end. How many goals have Southampton conceded this season trying to be clever and play it out from the back? Like, why are they even trying to do something they arent capable of doing?
I long for the days of getting the ball to the wingers, who are predominantly skilful and quick and getting them to attack their fullback on the outside. It got fans off their seats and watch any game from the 80s or 90s or even the 00s, the first thing i notice is that the atmosphere felt so much more pure and exciting. A part of that is due to the demographic changing over the years of the sort that attend football matches but also, perhaps a larger part is that fans a bored. Theres no excitement anymore. Watch a championship game where, for the majority of teams the emphasis isnt on tiki taka football and even there the shift in atmosphere is noticable!
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I've seen my local National League South team try passing out from the back and it just hurts to witness, they don't have the players and it's atrocious.
 
It was never an era as such, it was a team. That Barcelona/Spain team simply wouldn’t be as special if it was just ‘how things were’ and replicated by everyone. As it stands, those teams belong in museums for a reason.

It will always be harder to do what Barcelona did at their prime than whatever it is Liverpool are doing now. Physicality and power is an equaliser to far superior technical ability and movement. There’s nobody sufficiently better than everyone else in the same way that axis of Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta and Messi were now. If that team was together in their prime today, they would have Liverpool, City and anyone else chasing shadows. They literally perfected football in a way another team is unlikely to be able to do again, and played it in its purest form, in a way I didn’t even think was possible until they did it.

The difference between them and the rest can be demonstrated no more clearly than their battles with us between 2009 and 2011. We were at the level of the likes of Liverpool today and Barcelona were still two levels above us. Italy’s physicality was no match for Spain who simply blew them away in the Euro final in 2012. We have Liverpool, City, Arsenal and co now because that is simply the best that football can do at the moment, and is likely to be the same for a while.

People called Barcelona ‘boring’, seemingly because it was boring that they were so much better than the best of the rest. They were the most beautiful team ever, and scored a ridiculous amount of goals. They were blowing the likes of Real, United, Bayern, Arsenal away at their prime. If you try to replicate them with 10% less, you will get destroyed by sheer physicality. What they did could ONLY be achieved at that level of perfection, one that I suspect coaches didn’t even think possible before.
 
mctrials23 said:
I don't buy this argument about there being a lack of technical players and that the game is slower. Its the complete opposite. Every team in the PL has a bunch of technically competent players. There are loads of creative players as well. The difference now is that the athleticism of all players is much higher so you have a much harder time beating a man. People have very rose tinted glasses when they look back 20 years or more.

The reason tiki taki worked was because the game was that much slower and you could play with slower, less athletic players who largely only needed to play 5m passes in a highly drilled system. That sort of football gets taken apart now not just because of the physical side of the game but because midfields would just swarm them, turn over the ball and kill them with well executed counter attacks.
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You've bought into the idea humans can make big physical gains over just a 20 year period. Twenty years is nothing. Evolution doesn't work that quick.

Players were just as athletic 20 years ago as they are now.

The game is definitely slower simply because goalkeepers and defenders are on the ball a lot more. It has to be slower.
 
Who else played small people except in La Liga?

I believe the reason why players like Rooney & Ronaldo turned so butch was to adapt and grow to the Premier Leagues physicality over technicality.

It's why I don't rate La Liga legends that highly because they are all in a league that benefits their core ability which is technical ability. If they came in to the PL they would have to adapt their game individually and intensively to the needs of this league.

Whilst on the same side I doubt La Liga fans rate PL legends as that great because they value technicality over physicality. It's like how Barcelona players talked highly of Scholes but not much else because he is the only one who showed technicality to get in to their sides. Maybe I'm wrong but have they ever talked about Roy Keane all that greatly?

Just as that, alot of these la liga legends wouldn't make it in to our best teams ever.

Pep was the only manager to really do it & realised at City he couldn't play Foden's & Gabriel Jesus's
 
Marwood said:
You've bought into the idea humans can make big physical gains over just a 20 year period. Twenty years is nothing. Evolution doesn't work that quick.

Players were just as athletic 20 years ago as they are now.

The game is definitely slower simply because goalkeepers and defenders are on the ball a lot more. It has to be slower.
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The overall athletic level raise across the sport has nothing to do with human evolution. It's better conditioning, nutrition, science. Teams have a lot more people working on player fitness than they had twenty years ago.
 
antk said:
The overall athletic level raise across the sport has nothing to do with human evolution. It's better conditioning, nutrition, science. Teams have a lot more people working on player fitness than they had twenty years ago.
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Specifically what's changed in the last 20 years regarding nutrition to improve athletic ability in footballers? Scientifically proven.
 
Marwood said:
Specifically what's changed in the last 20 years regarding nutrition to improve athletic ability in footballers? Scientifically proven.
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They eat better because they have more and better dedicated professionals to help them eat better, because clubs have more money to pay said professionals. There's nothing specific about it.
 
Shaw's Shank Redemption said:
Who else played small people except in La Liga?

I believe the reason why players like Rooney & Ronaldo turned so butch was to adapt and grow to the Premier Leagues physicality over technicality.

It's why I don't rate La Liga legends that highly because they are all in a league that benefits their core ability which is technical ability. If they came in to the PL they would have to adapt their game individually and intensively to the needs of this league.

Whilst on the same side I doubt La Liga fans rate PL legends as that great because they value technicality over physicality. It's like how Barcelona players talked highly of Scholes but not much else because he is the only one who showed technicality to get in to their sides. Maybe I'm wrong but have they ever talked about Roy Keane all that greatly?

Just as that, alot of these la liga legends wouldn't make it in to our best teams ever.

Pep was the only manager to really do it & realised at City he couldn't play Foden's & Gabriel Jesus's
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I'm sorry, but this literally sounds like the "but could he do it on a rainy night in stoke"-meme.

Spanish teams didnt have more issues playing English teams than anybody else, in fact, many of these la liga legends ran circles around EPL teams for years and years.

Likes of David Silva, Aguero, Bernardo etc. didn't have issues adapting to this league of big manly players you talk of either.
 
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Marwood said:
You've bought into the idea humans can make big physical gains over just a 20 year period. Twenty years is nothing. Evolution doesn't work that quick.

Players were just as athletic 20 years ago as they are now.

The game is definitely slower simply because goalkeepers and defenders are on the ball a lot more. It has to be slower.
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I would say football is a lot more intense now, players are far more athletic.
 
antk said:
They eat better because they have more and better dedicated professionals to help them eat better, because clubs have more money to pay said professionals. There's nothing specific about it.
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But what do you mean they eat better? What are they eating or not eating now compared to 20 years ago? That's scientifically proved to create better athletes? And how do you know this?

I don't think you or anybody actually knows this. It's just a go to response. An assumption.

Hammondo said:
I would say football is a lot more intense now, players are far more athletic.
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I don’t really get that at all. I watch games now and see defenders and goalkeepers passing it side to side. Nothing really happening for prolonged spells. Teams happy to play cat and mouse. Very little tackling going on. Ref's whistle constantly going.

It's nowhere near as intense to me. Again I think it's an assumption. Time has passed so something must get better. Except that isn't necessarily a rule and it hasn't happened in football.
 
Marwood said:
You've bought into the idea humans can make big physical gains over just a 20 year period. Twenty years is nothing. Evolution doesn't work that quick.

Players were just as athletic 20 years ago as they are now.

The game is definitely slower simply because goalkeepers and defenders are on the ball a lot more. It has to be slower.
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No they weren't. You're confusing evolution for improvements in every area of the sport. This has also been the case in a huge number of other sports which have seen large improvements in certain areas in the same time.

  • Better training/coaching from a young age
  • Better recovery
  • Better diet
  • Different kinds of training
  • Better tools for analysis
All of these things mean that players now are generally fitter than ever, healthier than ever and able to sustain efforts and intensity for longer than ever.
 
mctrials23 said:
No they weren't. You're confusing evolution for improvements in every area of the sport. This has also been the case in a huge number of other sports which have seen large improvements in certain areas in the same time.

  • Better training/coaching from a young age
  • Better recovery
  • Better diet
  • Different kinds of training
  • Better tools for analysis
All of these things mean that players now are generally fitter than ever, healthier than ever and able to sustain efforts and intensity for longer than ever.
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Just saying "better" is meaningless though. You're just assuming these things can forever get better.

Give a specific example of training that's taking place now that wasn't happening 20 years that's scientifically proven to create more athletic footballers.

Same for diet.
 
Marwood said:
But what do you mean they eat better? What are they eating or not eating now compared to 20 years ago? That's scientifically proved to create better athletes? And how do you know this?

I don't think you or anybody actually knows this. It's just a go to response. An assumption.



I don’t really get that at all. I watch games now and see defenders and goalkeepers passing it side to side. Nothing really happening for prolonged spells. Teams happy to play cat and mouse. Very little tackling going on. Ref's whistle constantly going.

It's nowhere near as intense to me. Again I think it's an assumption. Time has passed so something must get better. Except that isn't necessarily a rule and it hasn't happened in football.
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Because there is significantly less space due to how much more pressing there is. Finding space in order to do attacking play is just so much harder now.
 
Morty_ said:
I'm sorry, but this literally sounds like the "but could he do it on a rainy night in stoke"-meme.

Spanish teams didnt have more issues playing English teams than anybody else, in fact, many of these la liga legends ran circles around EPL teams for years and years.

Likes of David Silva, Aguero, Bernardo etc. didn't have issues adapting to this league of big manly players you talk of either.
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There's a difference in doing it in a league vs a double cup game.

Hojlund kills it in the CL & Europa League but does shit all in the PL.

Obviously none of these La Liga greats are comparable to Hojlund but there is a difference between doing it in a European match where you play multiple teams from multiple leagues whilst in one league you only play 19 teams from the same country 38 games a year usually having to play the similar football against the similar opposition.

anyway of those players you mention how are they compared to the la liga greats. Is David Silva regarded as good as Iniesta? Aguero as good as David Villa never mind Messi? Bernado Silva vs whoever? Busquets vs Rodri is an interesting one but I think once they retire people would still pick Busquets as the better player.

Anyway, each to their own - I'm not trying to convince anyone. I know that if I had to leave England to do my job in Singapore vs spending all my life retiring in england it won't be Easy. It doesn't mean its impossible and I could even become a better worker overall - but it would need me to adapt and learn the language, the culture, the technicalities and ethics. Some would do it easily, some wouldn't but never would I think its 100%.

It's not really about oversea players doing it in a wet day at stoke, because I doubt some players in our league could do it in a hot day in Spain aswell.
 
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I have no idea what’s supposed to be entertaining about hoofing the ball all the time. That sounds like nostalgia more than anything else to me.
 
Shaw's Shank Redemption said:
There's a difference in doing it in a league vs a double cup game.

Hojlund kills it in the CL & Europa League but does shit all in the PL.

Obviously none of these La Liga greats are comparable to Hojlund but there is a difference between doing it in a European match where you play multiple teams from multiple leagues whilst in one league you only play 19 teams from the same country 38 games a year usually having to play the similar football against the similar opposition.

anyway of those players you mention how are they compared to the la liga greats. Is David Silva regarded as good as Iniesta? Aguero as good as David Villa never mind Messi? Bernado Silva vs whoever? Busquets vs Rodri is an interesting one but I think once they retire people would still pick Busquets as the better player.

Anyway, each to their own - I'm not trying to convince anyone. I know that if I had to leave England to do my job in Singapore vs spending all my life retiring in england it won't be Easy. It doesn't mean its impossible and I could even become a better worker overall - but it would need me to adapt and learn the language, the culture, the technicalities and ethics. Some would do it easily, some wouldn't but never would I think its 100%.

It's not really about oversea players doing it in a wet day at stoke, because I doubt some players in our league could do it in a hot day in Spain aswell.
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I think Aguero is seen as good as Villa.

And which top teams in the cl has Hojlund scored against?
 
mctrials23 said:
I don't buy this argument about there being a lack of technical players and that the game is slower. Its the complete opposite. Every team in the PL has a bunch of technically competent players. There are loads of creative players as well. The difference now is that the athleticism of all players is much higher so you have a much harder time beating a man. People have very rose tinted glasses when they look back 20 years or more.

The reason tiki taki worked was because the game was that much slower and you could play with slower, less athletic players who largely only needed to play 5m passes in a highly drilled system. That sort of football gets taken apart now not just because of the physical side of the game but because midfields would just swarm them, turn over the ball and kill them with well executed counter attacks.
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I dont agree. Technically the players now can't pass the ball more then 10m. Free kicks on goal. Might as well not bother. I don't know anyone that gets me excited. Dribbling. Why are they so bad? Corners. How can you hit the first man so many times? Do you ever see the ball switch from one side of the pitch to the other? They need to pass it through 3 guys to get it to the other side. Decision making. If the system break down they don't have a clue what to do. No critical thinking. It's all been coached out of them.
The quality of our team at the moment is shocking. I can't think of one player in the same league scholes, rooney, ronaldo, keane, van persie, van nistelrooy, cantona, Ferdinand, Best, Law, ect.....
It's very though to watch us at the moment.
United till I die!
 
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