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Spain’s defeat to Russia in a 2nd round match of the FIFA World Cup 2018 signaled the end of a golden era that has seen them win a lot of trophies and accolades. However, that defeat also indicated the demise of tiki-taka, the Spanish nomenclature for a version of football comprising incessant short passes.
The likes of Andres Iniesta, Gerrard Pique and Sergio Ramos are not going to play for Spain again and their departure should also usher in a new style to Spanish football.
It was not only Spain who had suffered, but a number of other countries those influenced by the system also went out early. Germany won the last World Cup with a faster and more clinical version of tiki-taka but suffered the ignominy of bowing out of the group stages in Russia.
There were also some teams like Egypt and Saudi Arabia who tried to imitate Spain’s style of play and could not qualify for the second round.
This was in stark contrast with teams like Brazil, France and Croatia whose faster and more direct football enabled them to qualify from their respective groups with aplomb.
Those teams did not dominate possession like Spain and Germany, neither did they play numerous passes. However, what they succeeded in doing was to score goals and win matches. We would like to look at 3 reasons which caused the downfall of the much vaunted tiki-taka.
#1 Lack of quality players
It is the players who make a system successful in football and a lack of quality cannot be compensated by any strategy. A number of world-class players formed the fulcrum of the successful Spanish and German sides of recent past.
Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta were the 2 prime architects of Spain’s success in the past decade. With Xavi’s retirement and Iniesta’s ageing, Spain have lost their edge and performed poorly at the biggest stage. They have not been able to find suitable replacements for superb passers like Cesc Fabregas and Xabi Alonso either.
The same goes for Germany who no longer have players like Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Klose in their line-up. Both countries have tried to replace these legends but have failed miserably so far.
It has to be understood that everyone cannot pass like Xavi, neither does every player possess the ball skills of Iniesta. Therefore, it is very difficult to replicate their success with lesser mortals.
#2 The defensive strategy of the opponents
The opposition teams have now got used to tiki-taka and they adopt an ultra-defensive approach against it. Mexico’s rock solid performance against Germany and Russia’s dour resistance against Spain are testimony to that.
They preferred to sit deep and watch the opposition play harmless passes in the midfield. And when they got an opportunity to attack, they did so with lethal pace which their opponents found too difficult to handle.
Mexico’s counter attacking success against Germany is already part of World Cup folklore. Russia’s giant-killing performance against Spain has also caused euphoria in the host nation.
Other teams have also taken a cue from them and are likely to repeat this strategy in future. It is always going to be very difficult to score against such dogged resistance with the indirect approach of tiki-taka.
#3 Dearth of genuine goal scorers
The advent of the notion of a false 9 has caused a general degradation in the quality of strikers in world football. It has to be kept in mind that Spain’s supremely successful teams had goal-scorers like David Villa and Fernando Torres, while Germany had Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski.
It’s not possible to win football matches without quality strikers. All those passes played in the midfield are of no value unless they are converted into goals.
Spain has a top-class penalty box poacher in the form of Diego Costa, but he seems a misfit at times and does not get enough quality crosses from the wingers or fullbacks.
Germany dropped Sandro Wagner from the squad and played Timo Werner who seemed much more comfortable playing on the flanks.
As a result, they found it extremely difficult to score and win matches. Their respective coaches refused to adopt a more direct strategy and paid the price.
