Sports Desk :
The 2010 World Champions Spain’ first round exit from the 2014 World Cup Football (WCF) is no surprise. Their Tiki-taka technique that won applause through out the globe between 2008 and 2012 did not work this time because other European and the South American nations modernized their fast and power football.
In 2013 Confederations Cup, Italy showed the way how to stop the Spanish technique before losing the semifinals on the penalty shoot-out. But Brazil completely outplayed Spain 3-0 in the final to become champions for the 5th time, thrice in a row. Manager Del Bosque instead of becoming alert remained stick to the Tiki-taka technique and paid the price in the WCF 2014.
Thus we saw that Holland simply rattled them 5-1 and Chile made no mistake to make it 2-0 to dethrone the defending champions. Soccer experts fear Spain’s yet another defeat next week by Australia, who almost brought Holland to earth. Candidly speaking, the other European nations understood Tiki-taka, reformed their owns and became successful.
Tiki-taka is a style of play in football characterised by short passing and movement, working the ball through various channels, and maintaining possession. The style is primarily associated with La Liga Club Barcelona from Johan Cruyff’s tenure as manager to the present, and the Spanish national team under managers Luis Aragonés and Vicente del Bosque. Tiki-taka moves away from the traditional thinking of formations in football to a concept derived from zonal play. Such technique creates delusion to maneuver the opponents.
Journalist Guy Hedgecoe from Iberosphere argued that Tiki-taka is not entertaining any more due to the lack of pure strikers in the Spanish national team and their use of a false ‘9’ or a midfield player as a forward. This makes the game of football full of midfielders and no strikers or defenders. Hedgecoe claimed: “With no strikers, no defenders…no goalkeeper, perhaps, just 11 technically blessed midfielders merrily passing the ball around until someone walks it into the net
The soccer world witnessed Brazilian art through four decades till 1982, Holland’s total football in the seventies and the eighties, and finally Spain’s Tiki-taka in six years before falling in 2014. May be new and better skills in different name we shall see next time.
