Is Tiki-Taka The Best Tactic For Chelsea FC Or Not?

I am not a football purist and I don’t ever intend to be one! I am someone who believes that a counter attack is just as breath-taking as a passing move. A fantastic save is just as important as an exquisite finish. A well executed tackle, block or clearance is just as beautiful as a completed through-ball… blah blah blah (you get my point!). What I am basically trying to say is that every tactic is just as valuable as long as the ultimate goal is achieved.. winning a football match!

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As an ardent Chelsea FC supporter, it can get really tiring to hear the fans of Arsenal and Barcelona (the clubs for the so-called football purists) accuse Chelsea FC of being boring, antagonistic, classless, a club without history (that’s by Liverpool fans) and every other negative adjective in the dictionary. While I can swallow the insults from Barcelona fans (after all they have been able to marry their passing football with trophies), Arsenal have only managed to win a single trophy in the same period that has witnessed Chelsea FC emerge as one of the biggest football clubs in the Europe, playing the so-called boring, “park-the-bus” football at the same time.

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Tiki Taka, the style Barcelona is known to play, is currently regarded as the best style of football and is the way almost every team is ideally expected to play. According to Wikipedia, it is rumoured to have developed its roots during Johan Cruyff’s tenure as manager of Barcelona from 1988 to 1996. It went through various stages of improvement under Louis Van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard with varying levels of success.

It finally reached its peak under the reign of Pep Guardiola who was able to merge the Dutch concept of total football (which involved high pressing) with short passing football to create tiki taka as it is today. It was adopted by Luis Aragones and Vincente Del Bosque with the Spanish national team, which witnessed its most successful period from 2008 till date, winning consecutive European Nation’s Cups (2008 and 2012) and a World Cup (2010).

It is characterised by short passing, roaming movement and positional interchange among midfielders, working the ball through various channels, and maintaining possession using sharp, one-two passing. But once possession is lost, every effort is made to win it back as soon as possible by intense high pressing from front to back. It promotes passing, patience and possession above everything else and can be both offensively and defensively at the same time as the team is always in possession of the ball and so rarely needs to switch between defending and attacking. One of its main advantages is that players tend to expend less energy and so can keep it up for the full duration of games.

When it leads to scoring chances, it is really beautiful to watch. But unfortunately, such moments do not occur very often in games (especially against sides well drilled defensively), leading to minutes and minutes of sterile passing and probing, moving the ball forward to find space and then backwards when space is not available, only to start the whole process again. This, in essence, is simply “passing the opposition to death”.

The style also does not encourage the use of a lot of direct players (players who like to run at opposing players with the ball), natural wingers or traditional centre forwards, as players like Alexis Sanchez, Pedro, Ibrahimovic (for Barcelona), Soldado, Illorente, Navas, Carzola and even Diego Costa (for Spain) have witnessed. As a result, when it is caught out, teams that use it find it difficult to adapt, like Spain were forced to see at the 2014 World Cup and Barcelona have found out in recent times.

Simply put, tiki taka is limited in scope and application and leaves little room for adaptation…

This is mainly due to the fact that tiki taka needs mainly technically gifted players, most of whom are not strong physically and are not naturally fast of the mark. It also prioritizes ball-playing defenders over defensive solidity, and as there are really few of such players, the available ones cost really large sums of money. This is one of the major reasons why Barcelona have found it difficult to replace Carles Puyol. Simply put, tiki taka is limited in scope and application and leaves little room for adaptation.

Chelsea FC, under Guus Hindick in the 2009 UCL semi-final, exposed the vulnerability of Barcelona’s tiki taka after being the only side to keep a clean sheet at the Nou Camp that season. They achieved this by using a solid, compact, and communicating defence to force Barcelona to shoot from outside the penalty area as well as having defender José Bosingwa, helped by center back John Terry and defensive midfielder Michael Essien, man-mark Lionel Messi (who is also one of the main reasons why Barcelona’s tiki taka is so successful).

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Since then, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich (who inflicted one of Barcelona’s most embarrassing defeats in the 2010/2011 UCL, winning by 7 goals to nil over both legs of their semi-final clash) and more recently Atletico Madrid have utilised the same tactics to secure results against Barcelona. Bayern Munich were also thrashed by Real Madrid in last season’s UCL semi-final by 6 goals to nil over both legs, again using basically the same tactics.

I also disagree with the notion by football purists that it is the most attacking form of football. The best way to defend is to keep the ball away from the opposition because as long as they do not have the ball, they cannot score or create goal scoring chances, which is basically what tiki taka encourages. To put it into perspective, Barcelona are not blessed with the most competent centre-backs, yet they have managed to keep 13 clean sheets in 25 league games, conceding just 15 goals in the process. Bayern Munich, the current proponents of tiki taka, have also managed to keep 15 clean sheets in 23 league games, conceding just 10 goals.

Even Arsene Wenger criticised the Spanish football team during Euro 2012, claiming that “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”. Incidentally, Spain won the tournament, scoring 12 goals and conceding just 1, which was in the opening group game against Italy. They also won the 2010 World Cup after scoring just 8 goals (6th highest scorers at the tournament) and conceding 2. They failed to score more than 2 goals in any game and even won every game from the knock-out stages onwards by lone goals.

“Originally, Spain wanted possession in order to attack and win the game; now it seems to be first and foremost a way not to lose.”… Arsene Wenger

Like every other football tactic before it, tiki taka is widely held in high esteem because of its success under Pep Guardiola. Tito Villanova (of blessed memory), Tata Martino and more recently Luis Enrique have been unable to achieve as much success using the same tactics since Guardiola resigned in 2012 (he incidentally confirmed that he would be leaving the club after another defeat from a backs-to-the-wall performance against Chelsea FC in the 2011/2012 UCL semi-final). This has led large sections of the media to claim that tiki taka is approaching its end.

Italy’s 1982 Catennacio, Holland’s 1970 Total Football, England’s 1930 Counter-attacking Football, Germany’s 1970 Sweeper Formation, Hungary’s 1953 Deep-lying Forward Role, Brazil’s 1950 Samba Football, Chelsea’s 2005 Makalele Role, Barcelona’s 2008 Tiki Taka… all these tactics have been considered superior at various times in history only because they succeeded in achieving their ultimate goals… winning football matches!

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