Uhmn,

NO!

This is a misleading title, and it's what everyone is saying tonight!

In my opinion, it's just not right. I think what's everyone is referring to is R.I.P possession game, not tiki-taka.

Barca's 2009-2010 and in their prime time was the real example of this tactic: high pressing, super fast + accurate one-two passing, and high possession (+ Messi :D).

What Bayern showed today is a lot slower, confusing and boring... it's not tiki-taka. Barca and Bayern in recent weeks have dropped their forms, played slowly and that's where they left tiki-taka.

2012 -> 2014, Barca has unintentionally altered or hasn't truely played tiki-taka.

I am a big fan of this beautiful football when they trashed us (MU) in 2 CL's finals in such spectacular fashion. Someone please bring it back.

Yep absolutely right. I'd give you a thumbs up if my mouse was working properly.

The old game of tiki-taka is not seen in World Football anymore. It's just "mock" tiki-taka, where teams aimlessly keep possession, and do absolutely nothing with it. Spurs tried it early in the season, Bayern have done it all season long, Barcelona have tried it, and Swansea have been trying it as well.

The closest any team has gotten to tiki-taka (other than Barca/Spain) has probably been Wenger's old Arsenal squad, and the Villareal squad in the late 2010's. Tiki-taka officially ended in 2011. After that, the team started collapsing. Otherwise, I can bet you that Barcelona wouldn't have lost to Chelsea in 2012.

Barcelona lost that night because they were already on the decline. They simply weren't the same team anymore, and weren't good enough to penetrate Chelsea's defense that night, even after Terry had been sent off. Even with Chelsea's deep defending, that wouldn't have stopped a Barcelona of 2009-11. The only thing that stopped that old Barcelona squad was high-pressing, and an immense amount of luck, determination, stamina, and physicality. Very few teams stopped them during their reign (11 trophies over those 3 seasons..... unbelievable).

Now Barca's squad may have bits and pieces remaining of tiki-taka, and that certainly does win them games (Madrid, City, into the quarters of CL, 4 points away from 1st place in La Liga, Copa del Rey final, winner of Supercopa), but obviously, they are not the monstrous force no longer. They are a very good team, as proven by their dismantling of Real and City, but they just aren't the same anymore. Tiki-taka is long gone.

I completely agree. Tiki-taka is a mindset more than a style of play. It requires the right players with the right training. I've watched a few Youtube videos that went more in depth and got to say it is extremely complex and makes you wonder how in the hell you can teach it in a way that make 11 men play so harmoniously.

@Dyn @TheGame: yep... Barca sometimes played like they got back tiki_taka, but the consistency isn't there anymore. I dont know if Tiki_taka can be brough back if Pep goes back to Barca, I dont think so.

Looking at how Atletico bossed Chelsea today, dominated them, I start to think how good Barca and Real are because they contained Atletico pretty well and those game were quite on par.

I don't know, I'm not much fan of tiki-taka. I was watching half of the match (few years ago) Puyol-Pique passing half of the game...

uhmn @fabryi, it aint true which game did you watch? Actually, like @Dyn said, your Arsenal is the only team who plays closest to tiki_taka, I thought you would like it. Did you see them in their prime time?

Yea, and you're right Arsenal playing similar style now, but playing like it Bayern yesterday. Passing forward, back, forward, back. Nothing surprising, no shoot just passing which lead to nothing...

+1 Tuan, we lost our equilibrium in defense, so its more dificult to loose the ball and cancede a counter-attack. That makes players less confident, keep more the ball and try less things because every counter is clear chance for the rival.
Get Thiago Silva and a world class GK and see the diference.

It's also the case that teams starting refusing to let Arsenal dictate the play in the same way. It's the same process I describe in the thread about tiki taka:

http://footyroom.com/forum/football-talk/tiki-taka-an-end-to-its-era-58307

people always generalize, just because a team that plays the possession games lose this or that time doesnt mean that much if you look at the bigger picture, it doesnt have to be the "tiki-taka" that was the main cause, it could be the team who has bad form, if a counter attacking team loses we never blame the tactics but instead the team/players etc.. with the bayern game, it was bayern that was bad, tiki-taka is not dead, it can still be still like the barca of 2011 if a team have the proper management etc..

@Knibis

+1. As for Bayern, it's more that they need the proper players than the proper management. Who better to teach tiki-taka than Guardiola?

It can't be like the Barcelona of 2011, because if it was, then it would no longer work.

See, European football has MOVED ON, guys. It's not the same landscape. You can't say that 'oh the players didn't do it right', because if the players didn't do it right, then maybe the tactics should have been chosen which were better suited to those players. And that's also doing a disservice to the teams who defeat it, even when it's 'done right'. Sometimes... tiki taka just isn't good enough.

That's because it's a principle, not a magical path to victory. There are other principles, just as valid as tiki taka, which make football teams just as successful.

The sheer arrogance of someone who would think that there is only one way to play, and that they've figured it out, and therefore the only reason they lose is because they didn't have the players to 'do it right' is staggering, but, it's nothing new when we look at who it is that is saying this.

It's the viewpoint of an arrogant, ignorant fan boy, not the viewpoint of someone who truly understands football, and how the sport works (and changes).

@Lodatz: Make perfect sense, football evolves to adapt to style, noone can dominate anything for long, that's why CL has that curse. What Barca did was already remarkable.

But there are formulas to success, and whatever that formula is, 15% would be universe luck.

However, I dont think anyone here, not me, not tiki or Dyn or fabryi would be naive or arrogant enough to believe a magical path to victory. I personally just want to see the jaw dropping moment tiki-taka brought again. And this post is just to express my concern regarding how people talk about the end of tiki-taka, it ended because Bayern's or Barca's didn't work anymore. No, they simply didn't play tiki-taka.

@tuan_jinn:

"What Barca did was already remarkable."

I agree entirely, and that 2009-2011 period deserves to be there among the great eras of Ajax, Bayern and AC Milan. It was a majestic period in which FC Barcelona showed the world something new, and at the time, something unstoppable.

It's just that it's no longer unstoppable.

In the other post, your analyze and argument are indeed correct. I think we all have that common idea of how teams adapt to tiki_taka and how tiki_taka needs to evolve to deal with different game plans that are made to stop them.

But plz answer me these 2:

• consistently perform the tiki_taka that Barca did is extremely difficult, but if they can, they would probably dominate the world if they have those 15% luck. Agree?
• "Bus parking" can trouble any team, it's not made to deal with tiki, it's just there.

@Lodatz

*"The sheer arrogance of someone who would think that there is only one way to play, and that they've figured it out, and therefore the only reason they lose is because they didn't have the players to 'do it right' is staggering, but, it's nothing new when we look at who it is that is saying this.
It's the viewpoint of an arrogant, ignorant fan boy*, not the viewpoint of someone who truly understands football, and how the sport works (and changes)."

• Somehow, I feel as if that comment is directed towards me.

@tuan:

"- consistently perform the tiki_taka that Barca did is extremely difficult, but if they can, they would probably dominate the world if they have those 15% luck. Agree?"

I would say: not necessarily. That 15% luck is arbitrary of course, and sometimes it can be 50% luck. Sometimes it can b only 5%. The reason I say this is not to evade your question, but simply to say: I don't know if luck can be pinned down that way.

For example: In 2009, Barcelona were 'lucky' in that they got away with 4 strong penalty calls in one game, and got the injury-time winner from Iniesta. But, how do you qualify that luck? I mean, was it a lucky case of a crappy ref, or a corrupt one? Was it a lucky case of Drogba not getting the ball under control to fire in a winner, or, was that down to Chelsea's 'bad luck'?

Conversely, look at 2012, in which Chelsea were 'lucky' that Messi missed a penalty, but Barcelona were lucky that Terry got sent off for something that no official could possibly have seen, and could only have been decided by video footage (which funnily enough was never used for any of those dodgy penalty decisions). So, I just think that luck cannot be counted as a factor, really, because otherwise we can always call any team that wins lucky, and any team that loses unlucky. It's just too arbitrary and nebulous to pin down, I believe.

I mean, you could say that a team which performs Catenaccio perfectly should always dominate, so long as they have that luck. At which point, is luck even what's causing it?

Do you see what I mean?

"- "Bus parking" can trouble any team, it's not made to deal with tiki, it's just there."

Well sure, but it is better against some styles than others. Atletico managed to beat it, despite having to change their own game to do so.

@Dynast: It was directed at knibis, because he has in the past said that Barcelona only lose when the other team gets lucky, or when they don't perform at their best.

Everyone should give Pep a break. it's his first season in Germany, he's still struggling with the language yet he has won Bundesliga in record time, he reached the CL semi finals and the final of the DFB-Pokal. It's just that we've been off form since winning the league. The team lost their rhythm and couldn't manage to get back into it, Thiago's injury also was a big blow. I'm confident we can still overcome Dortmund to win the DFB Pokal and come back stronger next season!

@Stern

To be honest, Bayern's weaknesses were visible throughout the season, but not many recognized them, and Guardiola was certainly one of them. They only managed to beat Arsenal with a man advantage, went behind mid-table Manchester United twice, scraped by Manchester City, struggled against Chelsea, and had a shuffle of 3-0 scorelines with Dortmund in the Bundesliga. Guardiola should've realized Bayern's weaknesses from these games early on, but he didn't.

Quite frankly, winning the Bundesliga in record fashion isn't as impressive as it sounds. The Bundesliga is almost deprived of competition for Bayern, especially with Dortmund having injuries to key players all throughout the season. Just look at this. Real Madrid beat the top 3 German teams with a combined score of 17-4. That goes to show how deceivingly weak the Bundesliga really is at the moment. Last season Dortmund and Bayern placed themselves as two of the best teams in the world, and now Madrid and Atletico are doing the same.

The only times Guardiola's team were tested were in the matches I had mentioned above, and you'll notice that Guardiola did not come out with a convincing victory in any of them (asides from perhaps the 3-1 victory at City). I mean, his biggest mistake has to be the exclusion of Javi Martinez. Playing the slow combination of Kroos and Schweinsteiger against the fastest counter-attacking team in the world, featuring ridiculous athletes in Benzema, Ronaldo, and Bale, that midfield duo was never going to work out. Neither of them are particularly good at marking, and neither are a defensive midfielder. Bayern was ripped apart because of Guardiola's failure to realize this mistake. And conceding twice from set pieces didn't help either (if you recall, set pieces were always Barcelona's weakness, and has remained that way even today).

If you don't want to read all of the above, all I wanna say is that Guardiola is trying to change Bayern to his own Spanish style. He shouldn't. Leave Bayern as they are. Heynckes' system was perfect. They just needed a little improvement in defense. Guardiola should've just kept the system moving, making occasional changes depending on the tactics of other teams. Tinkering too much with the Bayern juggernaut has sent them in reverse.

Of course we had weaknesses this season. I also would've preferred Martinez over Kroos against Madrid. But what I'm saying is that we should give Guardiola some time, obviously the team couldn't exactly play how he wanted them to on many occasions this season.

Madrid ripped us apart because of their class, and because we dropped form. I mean we only got a draw against Hoffenheim, lost to Augsburg (!) and got thrashed by Dortmund. Despite winning 5-2 against Bremen, the first half was horrendous. Like I said, it seems that the team lost their spark after winning the the title.

I think people's expectations were too damn high after last season, what did you expect us to do? Thrash every opponent in the Champions League by 5 goals to nil?

You guys always seem to forget that in Heynckes' first season we didn't win the league, we also got ripped apart 5-2 by Dortmund in the cup final. It takes time to establish a system. The year after we came back stronger and won the treble..