Hi lads!
Tiki Taka is a derivate of total football. Total football is an idea in which every player should be able to play anywhere on the pitch. Meaning the philosophy should be set to very fluid to have all your players join both attack and defence. Wikipedia states that it is a directionless extreme, neither attacking nor defensive in nature, meaning you need all your players to be both in front of the ball and behind the ball, depending on the role, so I opted for standard strategy. Being less agressive in nature then more attacking strategies, to win the ball, you must employ energy play. Hassle the opposition, but make few fouls. It requires players physically fit, as there is a lot of running involved. In order to form triangles, 4-5-1 formation is used.
So how does it play? Obviously you want to retain possession. That is best played with short passing, which means we have to play narrow, so that players are close to each other to incorporate effective short passing. Tempo is set as low as possible, to make sure passes are accurate. Playing narrow would allow for effective pressing game, so we push higher up. Not ridicoulously high, as we use a DM and he also needs space. Since that makes very little space to operate, players must use their creativity when entering final third. That is why most roles use creativity, and all roles use decisions as primary attributes. Having a treq or dlf or other creative role as striker means we need to support him with at least two players running from deep often, so that is why we use adv playmakers on the wings, as they do that by default. By doing that, they assume roles of outside strikers, so the formation essentially becomes a 4-3-3 when in possession. Adv Playmakers are on support duty to avoid dribbling and running toward goal and instead play through defence. Width is achieved by overlapping wingbacks.
Edit:
Modern and first concepts of tiki taka:
View attachment 365344View attachment 365343
As you can see, the first concept was with a treq as striker, but as it was fairly unbalanced, with 5 roles on attack duty, modern Barcelona is using a more balanced concept, with a poacher.
Tiki Taka is a derivate of total football. Total football is an idea in which every player should be able to play anywhere on the pitch. Meaning the philosophy should be set to very fluid to have all your players join both attack and defence. Wikipedia states that it is a directionless extreme, neither attacking nor defensive in nature, meaning you need all your players to be both in front of the ball and behind the ball, depending on the role, so I opted for standard strategy. Being less agressive in nature then more attacking strategies, to win the ball, you must employ energy play. Hassle the opposition, but make few fouls. It requires players physically fit, as there is a lot of running involved. In order to form triangles, 4-5-1 formation is used.
So how does it play? Obviously you want to retain possession. That is best played with short passing, which means we have to play narrow, so that players are close to each other to incorporate effective short passing. Tempo is set as low as possible, to make sure passes are accurate. Playing narrow would allow for effective pressing game, so we push higher up. Not ridicoulously high, as we use a DM and he also needs space. Since that makes very little space to operate, players must use their creativity when entering final third. That is why most roles use creativity, and all roles use decisions as primary attributes. Having a treq or dlf or other creative role as striker means we need to support him with at least two players running from deep often, so that is why we use adv playmakers on the wings, as they do that by default. By doing that, they assume roles of outside strikers, so the formation essentially becomes a 4-3-3 when in possession. Adv Playmakers are on support duty to avoid dribbling and running toward goal and instead play through defence. Width is achieved by overlapping wingbacks.
Edit:
Modern and first concepts of tiki taka:
View attachment 365344View attachment 365343
As you can see, the first concept was with a treq as striker, but as it was fairly unbalanced, with 5 roles on attack duty, modern Barcelona is using a more balanced concept, with a poacher.
Last edited:
I guess the reference is Pep's Barca, right ? I've tried very different ideas, including the Normal Strategy because it makes sense being the one that it's both attacking and defensive. Your Much Higher Tempo makes sense with this strategy because it has a lot of time wasting by default (passing to the feet with no risk is something completly different of wasting time) sp it generates some kind of balance. One thing I didn't try and it can be a good idea is stretching players, using a (zonal) mark tighter PI with the more advanced players at the same time with your deep defence line.