I must warn you that you may disagree with much of my opinions in this piece and that is absolutely fine. They are all my own opinions which are there to be questioned and debated.
At the end of the 2007/08 season Josep ‘Pep’ Guardiola was promoted as B team manager and took over as Barcelona manager from the legendary Frank Rijkaard. In his first season Guardiola had one of the finest season’s in Barcelona’s history, winning the treble of Copa del Rey, La Liga and Champions League. The following season he won another La Liga and cup double and upon ending his 4 years at Barca he had acquired a club record 14 honours.
Pep’s time at Barcelona saw him introduce a style of football based on discipline and efficiency. Often seen as ‘tiki-taka’ football, a style he by no means invented. It was really taken from Johan Cryuff’s 1990’s Barcelona teams but seen previously by FC Schalke in the 1930’s and similar to the ’Total Football’ used by Ajax and The Netherlands in the 1970’s.
Guardiola’s system was characterised by short passes, high ball possession and constant movement of the ball. His team was so efficient with the style that other teams just couldn’t match them. Add to this the fact he had one of, if not the, greatest player of all time in Lionel Messi playing alongside more legendary players such as Xavi, Iniesta, Carlos Puyol and Dani Alves. This Barca team was unstoppable and it was up to everyone else to find a way to keep up.
The Pep Barca era happened to coincide with Spanish dominance on an international level. The Spanish team was actually more synonymous with Tiki-Taka and the phrase was said to be coined by Spanish broadcaster, Andres Montes, during the 2006 World Cup. Spain were so effective with the style that they won Euro 2008, World Cup 2010 and Euro 2012 and they didn’t even have Messi!
As you can see, during the 4 years of Guardiola’s Barcelona reign this style, whether you call it tiki-taka or not was dominating football and teams started to either try and emulate it or play a form of ‘anti-football’ in order to beat it.
The largest problem with trying to copy the style was that other teams firstly, did not have the training or discipline to install it and secondly, didn’t have a players talented enough the carry it out effectively. Teams would just pass the ball around endlessly with no end result.
When we talk about anti-football, the first name that comes to mind is Jose Mourinho. After a number of fiesty encounters with Barcelona as Chelsea manger, Mourinho’s Inter Milan side stopped Barca from winning back to back Champions League titles by knocking them out in the 2010 Semi Final. The high pressure tactics and extreme gamesmanship used by Inter frustrated the Catalans with constant fouls and breaking up play. It was an enthralling tactical watch, but with more cards than shots on goal you wouldn’t want every game to be like this.
The strategy employed within Guardiola’s team would only suit certain types of players and saw some star names fall out of favour with Pep. Most notably one of the greatest world talents and possibly the most naturally gifted player of all time, Ronaldinho, was Guardiola’s first casualty. His free movement and unpredictable play does not fit in with discipline, positioning and short passing so he was quickly shipped off to AC Milan. Other star names that didn’t seem to fit in including Samuel Eto’o, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Deco and Yaya Toure. Although the style was obviously working, do we really want to see a game that such exciting talented players don’t have a place in.
The Spain team at Euro 2012 drew much criticism for adopting a formation with no striker. Although Spain won the tournament they were often seen as dull with Mourinho calling out their ‘sterile’ techniques, Arsene Wenger calling them negative and Gary Lineker asking if this was the death of the striker.
By the time Guardiola was coming to the end of his Barcelona reign, his and Spain’s brand of football had become wide spread with attempts to imitate it seen regularly. I for one was turning off from football in general as games became more and more predictable. As teams with less talented players tried short passing and high possession we would be watching the ball go round and round the pitch with very little to talk about. In a 2022 interview with Movistar Messi talked about worse managers attempt to copy Guardiola with very little success. He claimed that ‘Guardiola did football a lot of harm’ he said ‘It seemed so easy and so simple that everyone wanted to copy it afterwards.’
It had become very much like watching a computer game. I could tell you exactly where each player was going to pass it next and where the other players on the pitch would move to. Nothing was getting me out of my seat anymore and dreams of nineties nostalgia, personality and flair had taken over from the excitement of current competition.
In an age where heavily media trained players where already lacking the personality of yesteryear we needed expression on the pitch more than ever. Barca’s legendary players of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta are undoubtedly some of the best to ever play the game but their robotic personalities off the pitch matched what we saw on it. Yes, if we watched them we would see some of the greatest football ever played but there was no drama, no storyline, no unpredictability and I was surprised how little I wanted to watch them.
At the end of the 2011/12 season Guardiola stepped down from Barcelona citing tiredness as the main reason. They had been knocked out of the champions league by Chelsea and lost La Liga to Madrid but he would finish with his 14th trophy in the Copa del Rey. The following 2 seasons would see Barcelona continue with the tiki-taka style with a La Liga win in 2012/13 and no silverware in 2013/14 but when Luis Enrique took over the following season he would have to change the style completely after Xavi’s departure to bring back success to the club.
In 2013 Gerrard Pique admitted that he felt Barcelona had become predictable in the way they played as a result of being overly dependent on tiki-taka.
While Guardiola’s style of play has undoubtedly been successful and has had a profound impact on the sport of football, it had also led to a monotony in the way teams play and a decrease in excitement on the pitch. It is fair to say that Tiki Taka is a powerful tool, but it should be one of many in a coach’s arsenal. It is also important to note that Guardiola’s approach to Tiki-Taka has evolved over time, he has used different variations of it and has also been willing to adapt it to his teams.
Perhaps we were lucky that Pep decided to leave Barcelona when he did as this seemed to put an end to the poor imitations of his style and football was able to become exciting and unpredictable again. My football wilderness had ended and I was back watching again on the edge of my seat with recent Champions Leagues being some of the most exciting football we’ve ever witnessed.
Dan Smith Sport 