Tiki Taka - How can it be Ineffective?

     As with any strategy, over the years many coaches have had the chance to study its ins and outs and attempted to come up with counter strategies to render it useless. The most common counter to Tiki Taka is applying pressure. As a defender myself, my high school coach always told me that "pressure turns a great player into an average player." As a matter of fact, he could not be any more correct. Tiki Taka thrives on teamwork. If one player gets caught with the ball even for a second too long, the defending team can apply pressure which forces the ball possessor to focus less on getting the ball to his teammate and more on trying to protect it himself. Of course, applying pressure is not a flawless counter to Tiki Taka. Applying pressure generally means that defending players have to leave their positions in order to step up to the attacker. This creates gaps in the defense that the attacking team can exploit  if the pressured player succeeds in getting the ball to one of his teammates. Another counter strategy has come to be known as "Parking the Bus." This is a tactic where the defense and midfielders sit back in front of their goal in two organized lines, only breaking the lines if absolutely necessary. This forces the attacking team to more or less just pass the ball around outside the defenses zone and makes it very hard to find penetrating passes to create scoring opportunities. This, so far, has proven to be the most effective counter strategy to Tiki Taka. However, it is still not perfect.