by Michael Cox
Tiki-taka, tippy-tappy – it came to dominate football. Still, it’s notable that Spain’s World Cup-winning manager Vicente del Bosque referred to tiki-taka as ‘a simplification’ while Guardiola was even more dismissive. ‘I loathe all that passing for the sake of it, all that tiki-taka. It’s so much rubbish,’ he said. ‘I hate tiki-taka. Tiki-taka means passing the ball for the sake of it, with no clear intention, and it’s pointless. Don’t believe what people say, Barça didn’t do tiki-taka!’ This felt like a musician unsuccessfully claiming their output didn’t conform to any particular genre, and the term stuck. Barcelona played, by common consent, tiki-taka.
Messi was unquestionably Barcelona’s best player, but he was a classic superstar, an attacker who could dribble past opponents repeatedly and score relentlessly. Xavi, however, was doing something entirely different – playing short, safe, sideways balls, but dominating big matches and ensuring his team were always in control. Football history is littered with solid, reliable midfielders who allowed talented attackers to shine, but Xavi was always building play subtly and methodically, slowly carving opponents apart.
Predictably, however, his style wasn’t initially appreciated in England. When Xavi appeared in a photo alongside Messi, Kaká, Fernando Torres and Cristiano Ronaldo at a ceremony to crown Ronaldo 2008 FIFA World Player of the Year, the Daily Mail’s pitiful headline was: ‘The best players in the world (and Xavi)’. Over the next couple of years Xavi completely dominated almost every big match he participated in, and the Mail was forced into a grovelling apology. ‘In a previous edition, we may have given the impression that Xavi wasn’t up to it,’ it read. ‘Now he is King Xavi, pass master of Barcelona … for proving us wrong, we salute you.’ We were suddenly all living in a Xavi world.
Newcastle midfielder Yohan Cabaye, who considered Xavi the greatest player around, once heard him say he wanted 100 touches of the ball per game. Cabaye adopted that approach, seeking out his passing number after every match – just one small example of Xavi’s huge influence upon European football. Simply keeping the ball, rather than attempting to do anything spectacular, was considered more important than ever, and Xavi was the most influential player of his generation. He, like Messi and Iniesta, was noticeably diminutive – so much for Guardiola’s previous declaration that football had become all about physicality. Xavi changed football. ‘He helped us to build, or to see, a new player profile that ended up running through all levels of the national team,’ said future Spain manager Julen Lopetegui. ‘He killed off the myth of physicality being above all else and opened people’s eyes to the qualities of small, technical players, proving that you can attack and also defend with the ball.’
England mercifully avoided Spain at international tournaments during this period, but Barcelona regularly defeated English opposition in the Champions League, eliminating Chelsea in 2009 and Arsenal in both 2010 and 2011. Most notable, however, were their two victories in the 2009 and 2011 finals of this competition against Manchester United.
The first success came after Guardiola surprised Sir Alex Ferguson with his use of Messi, previously considered a right-winger, in a false nine role. Barca went ahead against the run of play, but when United chased the game and ended up in a 4–2–4 shape with Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov across the frontline, they were completely overwhelmed in midfield and well beaten 2–0. Two years later, with Messi established as a false nine, Rooney not marking Busquets properly and United using the immobile central midfield duo of Michael Carrick and Ryan Giggs, they were again overrun in midfield. 3–1 didn’t accurately reflect Barça’s dominance. Incredibly, Barcelona’s most frequent passing combination was Xavi passing to Iniesta 33 times, while United’s was Nemanja Vidić passing sideways to centre-back partner Rio Ferdinand 10 times. The three Barça midfielders, Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta, all claimed an assist. The three forwards, Messi, Pedro and Villa, all scored. Guardiola had created a beautifully balanced side that took possession football to new levels.
In that second final defeat, United’s attempted to engage Barcelona too high up the pitch, with Vidić and Ferdinand instructed to hold a relatively high defensive line. Neither were happy with that approach, with the latter infuriating Ferguson by openly questioning his tactics. But ahead of a 2013 meeting with Real Madrid, Ferguson’s last European tie, he admitted to his players that his tactics against Barcelona in these finals had been wrong. A simple passage from his autobiography speaks volumes. Discussing the way United defended extremely deep in the 2008 semi-final victory over Barça, Ferguson says simply: ‘We might have done that again in the 2009 and 2011 finals, had I not been determined to win those games our way.’ Ferguson let his heart rule his head and, having clinched the Champions League in somewhat fortunate circumstances in both 1999 and 2008, was determined to triumph in a manner that accurately reflected United’s footballing principles.
Barcelona’s 2011 victory was also notable for Paul Scholes getting a 13-minute run-out when the contest was effectively dead. At full-time he swapped shirts with Iniesta, paraded around the Wembley pitch in a Barcelona shirt and later announced his retirement from professional football. There was a gushing stream of tributes for his possession play, led by the Barcelona players who had just defeated him. ‘If he’d been Spanish,’ said Xavi, ‘he might have been rated more highly.’ But Scholes was only considered a true world-class performer once Xavi and his fellow Spaniards had popularised the type of possession football he epitomised during his final few seasons.
Scholes was a wonderfully talented footballer, but the incredible explosion in his reputation upon retirement demonstrates this entirely new perception of midfielders. He was now cast as a midfielder revered across Europe but cruelly unappreciated in his homeland, resulting in a completely revisionist account of his left-sided positioning at Euro 2004, as outlined in Chapter 15. For all the glowing tributes offered by the likes of Xavi, Iniesta and Zinedine Zidane, Ballon d’Or voting figures suggest Scholes was never considered a truly elite player throughout his supposed peak years. While nominated for the 50-man shortlist in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2007, he never received a vote – not a single vote from any member of the judging panel in any year – which puts him behind somewhat forgettable Premier League players like Adrian Mutu, Karel Poborský and Papa Bouba Diop in the all-time Ballon d’Or voting stakes.
The modest, shy midfielder wasn’t the type to worry about awards and he accepted his lack of individual honours with good grace. After his retirement, when asked whether he was disappointed never to have won the Ballon d’Or, he was typically droll. ‘I wasn’t even the best player in the dressing room at Manchester United,’ he admitted. ‘So it would have been pushing it to make a claim to be the best footballer in the world.’ Of course, the very fact that Scholes was asked about not winning the award – when he never even received a single vote – says much about how his status soared.
While Scholes enjoyed several fine seasons – 1998/99, 2002/03 and 2006/07 were particularly impressive – his best Manchester United form was arguably around 2010, by which time he’d retreated into a withdrawn role directly in front of the defence. He won Player of the Month in August 2010 following some outstanding displays packed with brilliant diagonal balls, prompting bizarre discussion – because it was seven months early – about whether he should win Footballer of the Year, underlining how his lack of individual awards suddenly become an issue. Possession football was in vogue, it suited Scholes’s footballing intelligence wonderfully, and during the first few weeks of 2010/11 he exerted an influence greater than any deep-lying playmaker in Premier League history, with the arguable exception of Xabi Alonso at Liverpool.
This was wrongly inferred to have been Scholes’s style throughout his career, however. Beforehand he couldn’t play so deep because that role was considered to be about tackling, and a couple of years later the rise of heavy pressing would have affected his ability to dominate matches. But around 2010 came the pe
rfect storm of Scholes at his most experienced and football at its most possession-based. ‘People associate me with with starting attacks by knocking long balls,’ Scholes said. ‘It became something of a trademark over the last few years when I wasn’t scoring so many goals.’ It’s worth remembering, of course, that he initially played in such an advanced position that United fans sang ‘Paul Scholes, he scores goals’. By the time Scholes became universally celebrated towards the end of his career he didn’t score goals at all – although admittedly ‘he assists goals’ or the more accurate ‘he plays the initial diagonal passes out wide, allowing the wingers to push forward and create goals’ don’t scan particularly well.
After initially quitting football after the Champions League Final, showered with praise by world-renowned opponents, Scholes was only away for half a season before returning for another 18-month stint with United. While reversing a retirement decision is common in other sports, it’s difficult to think of another top-level footballer in the modern era who has made such a comeback. Scholes shock return was surely because he realised his talents were more in demand than ever, despite the fact that he was now 37. Considering Guardiola was in charge of Barcelona by that age, after his top-level playing career ended at 31, there had been a quite extraordinary change over the course of a decade, a shift to technical rather than physical qualities. Scholes excelled throughout 2012 before retiring for a second time at the end of 2012/13, again as a league champion. This coincided with Ferguson’s retirement – and English football’s most successful manager used his retirement speech to pay particular tribute to Scholes.
Compare Scholes’s departure to the manner other ‘golden generation’ players left English football, and there’s an enormous contrast. David Beckham was sold having been dropped by Ferguson, Steven Gerrard was awkwardly shifted aside amid talk of his famous slip against Chelsea, Frank Lampard had an ill-advised, controversial loan spell at Manchester City, Ashley Cole found himself on Chelsea’s bench, Michael Owen barely got a game for Stoke, Rio Ferdinand was relegated with QPR, Gary Neville retired after a poor performance at West Brom having realised he could no longer compete at the top, Sol Campbell was completely unfit throughout a short spell at Newcastle, Owen Hargreaves spent entire seasons on the treatment table and Joe Cole ended up at third-tier Coventry City. These were once world-class players, but they suffered entirely undignified endings to their career. By virtue of Scholes twice bowing out on a high, at a time when English football had learned to appreciate players in his mould, his legacy wasn’t simply preserved, but actually enhanced. Scholes was always a fine player, but only in a tiki-taka, Xavified world was he considered a true great.
A similar, if less spectacular, late-career renaissance was enjoyed by Mikel Arteta. The Spanish central midfielder, a childhood friend of Xabi Alonso in San Sebastián, was educated at Barcelona between the ages of 15 and 20 and was another who based his game around passing, idolising Guardiola. After spells in Scotland and France he joined Everton, where he was considered a forward-thinking midfielder and sometimes fielded on the right flank. His move to Arsenal in 2011, in the wake of Cesc Fàbregas decamping to Guardiola’s Barcelona, meant Arteta became appreciated like never before. He wasn’t a world-class player and was never capped by Spain, but his impact upon Arsenal shouldn’t be underestimated. He signed shortly after their lowest point in the Premier League era, their astonishing 8–2 loss to Manchester United in August 2011, when they were a shambles and huge outsiders for a Champions League place. But Arteta’s footballing intelligence, his passing quality and methodical, patient, Xavi-esque use of the ball meant Arsenal became solid, steadily improved and eventually confirmed their top-four place at the expense of Tottenham. Arsenal had averted their first genuine crisis under Arsène Wenger, largely thanks to the footballing intelligence of a Spanish passing midfielder. Like Scholes, Arteta initially played alongside a sturdier holding player, before eventually becoming his side’s deepest midfielder. He became Arsenal’s club captain, before announcing his retirement in 2016 after receiving a coaching offer he couldn’t turn down – fittingly, from Guardiola.
This period of possession play wasn’t all about midfielders becoming ball-hoarders, however – it was about entire teams holding onto the ball for longer periods and attacking in a considerably more patient manner. This shift must be considered alongside the increasing dependence upon club analysts, who revered Barça’s dominance and ended up focusing too much upon passing figures. ‘It is important not to get too carried away with the numbers. They are a tool – they shouldn’t become an obsession,’ warned Carlo Ancelotti. ‘At one time it was all about possession, with all the analysts concentrating upon that. Why? Because it was something they could measure. But as Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Possession alone doesn’t win the game.’
That might sound obvious, but during this period it became common for managers to cite passing statistics and possession percentages. Manager of West Bromwich Albion Roberto Di Matteo once raved about the number of passes Barça had played in a recent match, before promising his team was working towards improving their tally. Before this possession era such numbers would have been considered irrelevant; who knew how many passes per game Barcelona – or anyone – played? Now, every Premier League manager did. When David Moyes replaced Ferguson at Manchester United he specifically focused upon passing figures, as Rio Ferdinand recalled with some bemusement. ‘He’d say, “Today I want us to have 600 passes in the game. Last week it was only 400.” Who cares? I’d rather score five goals from 10 passes.’
While passing statistics concerning individual teams proved problematic, passing statistics for the Premier League overall emphasised the significant shift towards a possession-based style. From 2003/04 to 2013/14 the pass-completion rate in the Premier League improved from 70 per cent to 81 per cent, a huge rise in a decade. That obviously translates to around 1 per cent each year, but a further breakdown reveals a particular period of progression. In the three years from 2003/04 to 2006/07 it rose just 1 per cent in total, whereas in the two years from 2009/10 to 2011/12 it jumped 6 per cent.
While the Premier League’s tactical development is usually about the top clubs, that 6 per cent jump owed much to the division’s lesser lights. In 2009/10, eight sides – Stoke, Bolton, Blackburn, Sunderland, Hull, Birmingham, Wolves and Burnley – recorded a pass completion rate of less than 70 per cent. By 2011/12 only one was under that figure – Stoke – and even Pulis’s side had improved their figure by an above-average 7 per cent. This was a league-wide strategic shift towards the Spanish model, and in those two seasons of rapid pass completion progress, two Premier League newcomers proved particularly fascinating.
The first example was Ian Holloway’s Blackpool, who surprisingly achieved promotion through the play-offs in 2010 and started their inaugural Premier League campaign as favourites for relegation. ‘After watching the World Cup, I’ve realised that we need to get more like Spain,’ Holloway declared before 2010/11. ‘I wouldn’t like to try and get the ball off them, and we want to be more like that … you have to caress the ball, you have to love it and you must not give it to anyone else.’ The charismatic, slightly bonkers Holloway wanted Blackpool to dominate possession, and his references to Spanish football became a common theme. After an impressive 2–0 victory at Newcastle in early September he returned to the subject. ‘You’ve got to look at tiki-taka, you’ve got to look at Spain, how they pass the ball, how they keep the ball,’ he said. ‘They are little guys who run around passing and they are quite brilliant. What’s wrong with us, why can’t we do it? I want my team to be more like Spain!’
Holloway always used three central midfielders, either in a 4–3–3 or a 4–2–3–1 formation, and stretched the play on both flanks. His wide forwards were located by the laser-sharp, long-range diagonal balls of Charlie Adam, Blackpool’s star man. The Scottish midfielder was a c
urious player; he boasted an absolutely wonderful left foot and an extensive passing range, but lacked athleticism and struggled to get around the pitch. Holloway, therefore, constructed a system that allowed him to exhibit his strengths without exposing his weaknesses. When Adam collected the ball from deep, his midfield colleagues would push forward into attack. When he found himself in an advanced position, the other two would provide defensive balance. He had free rein to move wherever he liked, in the knowledge that two teammates would act as the counterweight.
Constructing a side unashamedly around one player seems alarmingly simple, but in the first half of 2010/11 this worked brilliantly for Blackpool. At the turn of the year they were seventh, a hugely impressive position for such a small club – who had, for example, a total of one full-time scout on the lookout for new players. Adam was briefly among the most revered players in the league, launching a succession of diagonal passes towards Blackpool’s wide men and providing a great set-piece threat. On a windy January evening at Bloomfield Road Blackpool led eventual champions Manchester United 2–0 at half-time, with Adam pinging brilliant diagonal balls towards the touchlines and fizzing in set-pieces. United recovered to win 3–2, but Ferguson was taken aback by Adam’s quality. ‘The first half we were battered, and we couldn’t handle Charlie Adam,’ he said, before mischievously adding, amid reports that Blackpool had turned down an offer from Liverpool, ‘His corner kicks are worth £10m alone’. Adam eventually moved to Liverpool that summer, somewhat optimistically billed as a belated replacement for Xabi Alonso.
In the second half of that campaign at Blackpool, however, Adam and Blackpool’s form dipped alarmingly. Adam’s concentration was clearly affected by rumours of his departure, and he became carried away with his privileged role in Blackpool side’s. Weirdly, he started to regularly shoot from the halfway line. He certainly had the range for these Beckham-esque attempts, and netted for Stoke City in precisely that manner away at Chelsea four years later, but at Blackpool he was trying it every other week. In terms of his passing, opponents got wise to Blackpool’s dependence upon one man, concentrated upon nullifying him, and after Christmas Holloway’s side won just three games. Their defensive shortcomings were impossible to ignore – they conceded, on average, more than two goals per game and were eventually relegated after a final-day defeat at Old Trafford. ‘The fat lady has finished singing and unfortunately I don’t like her tune,’ Holloway mused. ‘That’s it in football – you’re famous for two seconds and then you’re gone.’ This was particularly true in the case of Blackpool, who found themselves in the fourth tier by 2016/17 after despicable financial management by their owners.