Has the tiki-taka ‘tiny turbo player’ era come to an end?
- Thread starter Fortitude
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It's not either a question of size, it's a question of characteristics and a quote of strength no matter size (this last aspect specially important if they are hunted and want to avoid too many injuries, like for instance happened to Aimar and Pastore, skillfull as hell, one tall the other a midget, both lightweight).
Following with little skillful fellas: Aimar, Banega, Silva, Verratti, De la Peña, etc etc even fecking Ibagaza or players that acted like enganches or mediapuntas, were stocky yet small: Messi, Tevez, Rooney, Aguero, etc...at the same time, Busquets, Valeron, Zidane, Redondo, Riquelme, Rikjaard, Kross, Xabi Alonso, all tall or mid size yet strong BUT MOSTLY like the "midgets", very intelligent and skillful. In fact one of the biggest midfielders ever was Lothar, just 1.72 of pure talent and power and also in these last years, regarding players more focus in the defensive side, have examples in midgets hunting entire midfields with no pause like Kante, Mascherano and Gatusso.
Messi used to eat pizzas all the time and was best in the world, Usain Bolt ate chicken nuggets and was fastest. Zidane used to smoke, whereas Stanley Matthews in the 1940s and 1950s was a tee-totaller. Paul McGrath once marked Alan Shearer out of a game when he was drunk apparently, this was in the mid-1990s.
In athletics, Bob Beamon jumped longer in 1968 than people do now and if you look at a lot of athletics records, the top 5 and top 10 will feature runs from the 1980s and 1990s. Pele could run 100m in under 11 seconds, which would probably make him among the fastest in the United squad today, never mind technique. So yeah people wildly overrate constant progression imo, it varies considerably. The 1980s and 90s were full of steroids and EPO too, if you put a team from today against 90s Juventus, they may well be outrun or least matched because one team isn't playing fair.
I also have a theory that footballers play less football today than they did 50 years ago because they just go to regimented training for a few hours and go home, whereas players from 50 years ago would do it for fun all day every day, especially in poor neighbourhoods, there was nothing else to do - no video games or other distractions.
There will always be exceptions, but by-and-large players today are fitter, stronger and faster, the game is much quicker and more physically demanding, there were plenty of things to do in days gone by, they were just different, snooker halls were a favourite in the old days for example, nowadays players have the table in their house!
Possibly. I knew fans of the EPL as well but I found English football in the 00s difficult to watch because it was spectacle over effectiveness. Long shots when other players were better positioned, tackles when it would have been more intelligent to contain your opponent and stay on your feed, etc. It reminded me of that one team mate who always shot from bad positions and when he finally scored a screamer, you cheered but there as always that second thought "oh feck, now he's going to attempt these shots even more often than before"
Absolutely but I wanted to see Alonso style football for a very long time in Leverkusen. Already was a huge fan of Peter Bosz when he was our coach because he tried something similar. I can also watch hours of Barcelona's tiki taka play on YouTube. Positional play, simple passes and timing are the essence of football and it's by far the best watch if a team executes these things on a high level. Especially since it brings them into more situation in which the magicians can show what they're capable of.
Another thing that's changed since the 00s, just looking at the game vs Everton just now, It's completely normal for all our outfield players to be camped in their half.
15 years ago, that was still something mainly associated with Dutch total football.
15 years ago, that was still something mainly associated with Dutch total football.
Perhaps but that's one of the reasons why the PL became the behmoth it is, people wanted the spectacle, they wanted the excitement
It all started to fall apart when men were forced to wear those digital blue tooth enabled sports bras. All because players couldn't cope with hobbit football.
Yeah, also the vast majority of games seemed to have close to 50-50 possession with 60+ being seen as overly possession-based or extremely dominant. In recent years you get a lot more 70+ possession games, even 80%, where one team just camps and the other team constantly has the ball, which isn't really a great spectacle outside of say an important knockout game.
Define "tiny"
Pedri and Gavi are like 5'8
Vitinha the same, Joao Neves, Mainoo...
Pedri and Gavi are like 5'8
Vitinha the same, Joao Neves, Mainoo...
The irony here is that tiki-taka worked at a time when European football had been dominated by compact, physical, counter-attacking football. The midfielders of the 2000s were mostly big athletic machines who were excellent pressers, ball-winners and thrived off the ball and in transitions. The top English clubs mostly played the same game model of a compact, counter-based 4-3-3 / 4-5-1 with a hard-working attack and a hard-working midfield. Yet tiki-taka came in and cut it right open because the technical quality was so high. And it only succeeded in its purest form because there was such a unique concentration of ball-retaining talent - all hitting their peaks at broadly the same time - in one club and in one country.
Since then the two big shifts in the game have been little to do with physical evolution and more to do with tactical principles. The first was possession, because tiki-taka was so successful and changed the game in an almost unprecedented way. The second was moving the defensive line higher. What drove both changes was the recognition that the 2000s game model was no longer effective at reaching the golden 90+ point mark needed to win the major leagues. It was the appreciation that more attacking football was the most efficient way to win domestic games.
Forgive my ignorance, but couldn't this largely be attributed to the rampant doping that took place during this time period (especially in track and field)?
I like to think that players were shorter back in the day because their feet kept getting into these pesky mole holes during the measurements.
Some of it yes, particularly on the women's side. Others no.
For athletics there is no linear improvement in performance. It largely levelled out about 30 years ago. Anything since then has been more to do with technology - faster spikes and faster tracks - than anything else.
Different sports have progressed at different rates. Athletics chewed off most of the fat in the 1950s to the 1970s. Football for me was a bit behind that but the improvement curve varied in different clubs and countries.
Well not really. Which teams had really athletic midfields? Some had powerful ones, but athletic? I cannot think of any.
Alright Tony Pulis, you've had your days. Time to sit back, relax and enjoy your retirement.
I wouldn't attribute that to the playstyle. The EPL simply was the most successful in commercializing itself due to the ownership structure, the willingness to pay by its domestic audience (pay TV was always much cheaper in Europe if I'm not mistaken), the language and the very good marketing. Most people find entertaining what they grew up with.
I think you're massively underestimating the importance of 'data driven' training regimes. The GPS vests that measure player performance means that we're not having a 'players probably run more' discussion in the pub. The data (and it's only since 2015 that players have been allowed to wear the vests that track the data) shows this to be the case.
Mainoo is 6ft with shoes on.
It's also a lot easier to put together a strong athletic midfield than a midfield comprised of Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets.
Only if he borrowed them from Ron DeSanctimonious
Considering how much La Liga teams have beaten English teams in European competition, its seemingly nuts not to 'rate' La Liga legends. England's inability to develop technical midfielders is probably why they haven't won anything in the last 30 years.
This is what I'm talking about.
England's inability to develop technical midfielders comes as a result of the teams of the league they play twice every week.
The C Ronaldo who grew up at United playing against Newcastle wouldnt have developed the same as a young C Ronaldo who developed at Barcelona playing against Real Betis.
Ronaldo's game turned much more physical than technical because he played in a much more physical league and he had to incorporate things like strength and aerial ability to his game than focusing purely on technical ability in La Liga. Barcelona would have made Ronaldo focus much more on technical ability.
We see it with Garnacho now. The guy is tripping all over the place because he is half the size of every fullback or CB in the league. What does he have to add? Some people will say Technicality or some people will say firmness and physicality to stop tripping up every time the opposition touches the back of his shirt. Garnacho at Barca wouldnt need to focus on bulking up as much and purely focus on improving his technical ability.
Another example is C Ronaldo & Bale Vs Neymar & Messi.
Who were the more direct and physical pair? Where did they grow up and what league did they play in? Whilst on the other side Neymar and Messi came from South America in to Barcelona and focused purely on their technical game only.