Xavi: Spain will win or die by tiki-taka

Spain’s Xavi addressing the media ahead of their match against Netherlands

Spain midfielder Xavi Hernandez says that the current world champions will stick to their style of possession play known as tiki-taka when they play against Netherlands in their World Cup opener.

Tiki-taka is a style of play which involves number of short passes and player movements along with retaining possession. Introduced by Barcelona and adopted by Spain, it has given enormous success to the Spanish side as they won two back-to-back Euro titles in 2008 & 2012 and also their first World Cup trophy in 2010.

However, after the failure of Barcelona in 2013-14 season, pundits have been criticising the tiki-taka style saying it has no more relevance in the present day counter-attacking style of football. Therefore, there were widespread speculations that the Spanish side would abandon their trade mark possession football in this World Cup

But Xavi dismissed all such doubts as he staunchly denied any such changes in their style of play when he spoke to the media ahead of their opener.

“We have our own style of play. We’ve been playing that way for many years and we’ll try to impose our style on them.”

“Our style of play is very clear. We want to dominate the game; keep possession. We’ve had this style for many years and had a great many successes, so I think it would be a mistake to change it.”

“All of our players have adapted to it by now. We’re going to win or die with this style of play. We want to make history again with this style of play,” he added.

The group B opener between Spain and Netherlands on Friday will be one of the mouth watering clashes in the group-stage matches as the previous finalists lock horns against each other in their first fixture in this World Cup.