Tiki-Taka dead? Is Guardiola’s spell of football coming to an end?

In the most successful period under the leadership of Guardiola, the Catalan club won 14 trophies in four years, making that generation the best of all time.

Along with two Champions Leagues and three national titles, what has remained forever is:

‘tiki-taka’ – the recognizable style of play with which Barca destroyed opponents.

‘Tiki-taka’ is characterized by great possession of the ball, constant movement, many short passes, formation of triangles, and, perhaps most importantly, pressure on the ball in every part of the field. 

After the departure of the Spanish coach and due to the club’s bad transfer policy, this style of play was lost, but Luis Enrique brought it back in the best way.

The man who successfully wore the ‘Blaugrana’ jersey revived the team and led it to the triple crown last season. 

The Catalans are again playing extremely aggressively and offensively, constantly pressuring the opponent and having pronounced possession of the ball. Those two managers might be the best in football history, as they led a team and won trophies with ‘tiki-taka.’

While managing Bayern Munich, Pep Guardiola wrote in his autobiography that he despised the ‘tiki-taka’ style, which became synonymous with Barcelona’s game under his leadership. 

In the book, Guardiola is quoted as telling his players about the famous ‘tiki-taka’ style after a match against Nuremberg.

‘I hate ‘tiki-taka’. It’s all shit** and has no purpose. You have to pass the ball with a clear intention of what you want with it. It’s not about endless unnecessary passes,’ Guardiola said then.

“You have to find your football DNA. I hate ‘tiki-taku,’ which means passing without a clear intention. It’s pointless… Barca never played ‘tiki-taka.’ In all team sports, the secret is putting pressure on one side of the field so the opponent cannot defend. Overload one side so that the other side has room to attack,” said Guardiola.

‘That’s why we have a lot of passing, to attract the opponents and then quickly strike on the other side. That’s how the game has to be, and it has nothing to do with ‘tiki-taka.’’

Besides Guardiola’s words, The Spanish national team got where they belong at the top of Europe in the last EURO 2024. 

Everyone knows that tiki-taka brought them to the top of Europe (twice) and once to the top of the World. 

The Red Fury is playing football again, which created the biggest revolution of recent times. 

Luis De La Fuente created his modification of the game that Pep Guardiola once perfected. 

Dani Olmo, Gavi, Pedri, Asensio, Carles Soler, Alvaro Morata, and Ferran Torres danced to the tunes of the man who, besides all negative comments and underestimates, led this team to another great trophy. 

From a young age, the Spanish are systematically taught to manage in a small space, and they do it the best of all the national teams on the globe. The well-known philosophy of short passes in the triangle plays the main role, which breaks every defensive set-up. 

Instead of being prevented from easily penetrating the goal, their opponents seemed so lost and confused that it was as if, at one point, they opened the gate of their yard wide, wishing their rival to enter freely and do as they pleased.

On the other hand, the ‘creator’ of ‘tiki-taka,’ Guardiola, is having a difficult time with his team, Manchester City, and the whole world is watching closely what this football genius will come up with. 

Since the summer of 2008, when Txiki Begiristain chose Pep Guardiola as Frank Rijkaard’s successor in Barcelona ​​rather than Jose Mourinho, the most important man in the world of 21st-century football, viewed from the point of view of the direction in which the entire game is moving in the previous fifteen years, has never faced with such a challenge that lies ahead in the coming months. 

All this forced Pep into a situation where he would have to shape a new permanent, more consistent tactic and raised a series of questions, the main one being, can he do it this time, and will he modify the ‘tiki-taka’?

Read More At EPL and Champion’s League.