The technique (which is my take anyway) seems to revolve around short passes…A lot of short passes, back and forth, left to right, up and down and then falling over in agony when an opponent attempts a tackle, thereby retaining possession and with any luck earning the opponent a card depending on the drama, number of rolls and shocked expressions of your team-mates, etc, etc…
Spain have become very very good at the style of play, created it seems due to Spain being out-muscled in world football with Xavi and Iniesta becoming the main conductors. It seems that Tiki-taki may soon need a rethink itself as it yields few goals and can now be countered successfully in an equally uncompromising way. In addition the extremely skilful close-ball players that are so well adapted to short passes and finding space who were the architects of Spain’s success are aging. Spain’s success in South Africa was done with the lowest ever goals/game ratio of any World Cup winner and the style of zonal possession isn’t always exciting for non-Spanish spectators as it is somewhat aimless and lacks the purpose of other systems.
Tiki Taka will be the system used at the World Cup by Spain as it suits their players and brings success but teams are adapting and you wonder if it can bring Spain success for a second World Cup, certainly Brazil beat Spain easily at the Confederations Cup last year.
Source: DSG
