What is Tiki-Taka | Evolution of Liverpool’s Tactics: Part 1

When you mention Tiki Taka, you think Barcelona, and you think Spain. And if you stumbled on here because you’re a Liverpool fan, you’re interested about knowing how this team functions and how it will develop in the upcoming seasons.

It is a way of football that, if deployed successfully, can be very successful, as Barcelona’s Champions League title and Spain’s World and European Cup successes suggest. But it requires a lot of tactical discipline and technical proficiently in order to be executed well.

In fairness, the first season of Brendan Rodgers has been fairly successful. We have looked very dangerous, we have passed well on most occasions and we have walked away on almost too many occasions saying “we should have won that one”. Mistakes were always going to be made on the way – although we perhaps didn’t quite expect that many this season.

The philosophy of the tiki-taka is to pass:

I get the ball, I pass the ball. I get the ball, I pass the ball.

Tiki-taka at its finest

There’s also a specific reference for them to be short, sharp exchanges – and the passes are kept on the ground.

The philosophy is to continually pass the ball and to press the opponents when not on the ball. The theory is that the passing will wear opposition players out and there will be little gaps that will eventually open up and allow for opportunities to score.

Tiki-taka changes how goalkeepers play. They have to play as a sweeper keeper – which means they have to be good with their feet. This leads to the team playing with almost an additional defender – the goalkeeper can go out of the box and clear the ball, hence allowing the team to operate with a higher defensive line.

A rather infamous example of this going wrong comes from Liverpool’s very own Pepe Reina after he charged out and tried to narrow the angle of Sergio Aguero before it all went wrong and the Argentinian provided a piece of magic to get the ball into the back of the net. But I’d like to think that that’s a very one-off scenario.

Reina playing as sweeper-keeper has, although his passing is a bit dodgy at times, proven effective. It has helped to switch play: an example would be him receiving the ball from Jose Enrique (left side of defense) before switching the ball to Glen Johnson (right side of defense), meaning that once the defenders are drawn to Enrique’s flank, it opens up space on the right.

This offers an alternative passing avenue. It spreads the ball out, it opens up gaps and allows the penetration to happen.

Trained in the arts … Xavi

There is also a certain type of passing that comes with a well-practiced setup. Teams such as Barcelona don’t try and switch the direction that their players are looking at and don’t turn that much unless they have space. They make straight one-two passes to players within their vision. They create triangles to outnumber the opposition. They break at pace once they’re away from the defenders.

One thing that you do notice about Barcelona is that their play is very narrow. And even when they spread it out to the wings, they barely ever cross it into the box; they continually play short ground passes to try and get into that box. But on most occasions, they play it through the middle. That is the very reason why they have two ‘inside forwards’; Alexis Sanchez, David Villa or Pedro being deployed.

There are lots of runs through the middle, lots of through balls played after long passages of passing and lots of one-two exchanges made, especially when it involves a certain player named Lionel Messi. There is that ever-constant awareness of where at least 2 or 3 players are on the playing field.

The idea is that dribbling is kept to the minimum unless there is lots of space in front of you. Play it simple and spray the ball about. And then wait for the magician (in our case Luis Suarez) to work the magic. In many ways, our Tiki-taka needs lots of refining. Our passing needs to be more solid, our defense needs to perform better.

Please do stay around. I’ll release the second part to “Evolution of Liverpool’s Tactics” next week, and I will discuss transfers and how they affect the setup, along with our defense.