Tiki Taka - How can it be Effective?

     To an inexperienced viewer, Tiki Taka may appear as nothing more than simply passing a ball around. However it is really much, much more than that. Behind the repeated simple looking passes lies a path to success. The main purpose of this system is to let the ball do more work than the players themselves. As the attacking team possesses the ball, they reserve their energy by only moving into open areas between the defenders. At the same time, the defenders continuously spend their energy chasing the ball around the field in a futile attempt to take the ball away. Once the defending team is tired out, the attacking team can begin making a series of penetrating passes into the defense in order to disorganize them over and over again. Eventually, the attacking team will find a point where a defender is constantly caught out of position and exploit that point as much as they can to score.

     How the system can be effective is not the only question that must be considered, you must also understand when it can be effective. The system is actually more effective when you have players with a shorter build. It makes them more agile and generally much quicker. This means that the player can more easily make their pass and immediately move to their next target space. This is not to say that larger players can not excel in this system, it has just seemed to fit more correctly with those who are smaller.