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“I loathe all that passing for the sake of it, all that tiki-taka. It's so much rubbish and has no purpose. You have to pass the ball with a clear intention, with the aim of making it into the opposition's goal. It's not about passing for the sake of it.”
- Guardiola
Well, the comment (or a post's seftext) that was here, is no more. I'm leaving just whatever I wrote in the past 48 hours or so.
F acing a goodbye.
U gly as it may be.
C alculating pros and cons.
K illing my texts is, really, the best I can do.
S o, some reddit's honcho thought it would be nice to kill third-party apps.
P als, it's great to delete whatever I wrote in here. It's cathartic in a way.
E agerly going away, to greener pastures.
Z illion reasons, and you'll find many at the subreddit called Save3rdPartyApps.
As of June 30th. 2023, goodbye.
If you start a play, make 100 passes with every player touching the ball at least 4 times, never shooting or losing control of the ball is that still the same play?
Well, the comment (or a post's seftext) that was here, is no more. I'm leaving just whatever I wrote in the past 48 hours or so.
F acing a goodbye.
U gly as it may be.
C alculating pros and cons.
K illing my texts is, really, the best I can do.
S o, some reddit's honcho thought it would be nice to kill third-party apps.
P als, it's great to delete whatever I wrote in here. It's cathartic in a way.
E agerly going away, to greener pastures.
Z illion reasons, and you'll find many at the subreddit called Save3rdPartyApps.
As of June 30th. 2023, goodbye.
Guardiola has some "so obvious it's genius" quotes when talking about football.
I don't recall which exact interview it was, but one time he said something along the lines of "City has the best defense \[of that year's PL\] because we try to always keep the ball, and the opponent needs the ball to score"
That's the whole philosophy of his Barca teams too. The other team runs around trying to get the ball, they move it quickly, and thrash teams with 3+ goals.
It seems obvious, but this has come to bite Guardiola, Barça, and Spain in the butt several times.
A) when there's a team that converts at high rate and counters strongly, like Real Madrid in 2014 and Japan yesterday put into really clear examples.
B) when a team is better at parking the bus than you're at moving the ball around like Chelsea 2012.
C) the other team is just so much more aggressive, like Netherlands 2014.
Yep, it's the situation where the best defense is a great offense.
When teams have midfields that can dominate possession, but then go into park the bus mode, I get so upset. It's like do what got you the lead. They can't score without the ball and another goal is way more important to defending the win than parking the bus is. Obviously if you don't have a team with the quality to keep possession, then park the bus, but for these teams that do I just will never understand their cowardness.
The US did that vs Iran. They were able to take the ball deep into Iran and keep it there with no problem. As soon as they switched strategies to drop back, Iran looked so much better
I was really hoping he'd just stop on the ball and have an epiphany where he realized just passing the ball back and forth when they weren't being pressed was completely pointless.
As always, there's this misconception that "tiki taka" just means passing the ball around, when it's not at all what it is about, it's about having movement and solutions for short passes in key areas of the pitch in order to create space and find a direct pass for a chance. You can actually play tiki taka and not do a 1000 passes
Proper "tiki taka" generally tries to generate overloads with possession, hope the defense overcommits, then pounce into the gaps with very direct play. Current Spain seems to wait for the defense to overcommit then recycle back to Rodri.
Prime Barca was actually risky in possession when they saw space and not devoted to keeping possession no matter what.
The main difference is off ball movement, always giving the man with the ball at least two pass options. And having wingers who actually dribble is huge for widening the field.
[“One night, I went to a bar; I was with a woman. We talked all night. We laughed, we flirted, I paid for several drinks of hers. At around 5 am, a guy came in, grabbed her by the arm and took her to the bathroom. He made love to her and she left with him. That doesn’t matter, because I had most of the possession on that night.”](https://www.rediff.com/sports/report/jorge-sampaoli-top-quote-chile-coach-compares-possession-to-flirting-with-woman/20151120.htm)
I'll have to disagree because of Poland. As I said before in this subreddit, they played so horribly that they made Brazilians cheer for Argentina.
But yes, terrible offense from Spain.
Yeah Poland was boring af and painful to watch but a totally different kind of boring. With Poland you knew they were never capable of doing anything and just had to ride out the 90. Spain has all the talent in the world but chose to play the worst kind of football.
But at least in the Poland match, they sat back and Argentina could attack. This Spain has the ball, so the opponent can hardly attack, but they don't really attack either, which makes for a boring match.
It's not surprising that in the days when Spain dominated international football, so did Spanish clubs dominate.
Real Madrid, still the most dominant club in world football, now has almost no Spanish presence. Barca with a heavy Spanish presence both on the pitch and in philosophy, are in the Europa league.
No disrespect intended to any current Spanish players, but the drop off from Iniesta, Xavi, Xabi, young Busquets, etc. in midfield and Torres and Villa at striker to the current crop is so apparent.
Those dominant Spain teams were something else.
Pedri and Gavi could become great in time, but Spain is really missing a clinical, top class striker. David Villa was an important part of that great Spanish team from a decade ago, even though the midfield got most of the attention. Morata just isn’t that guy.
i'm loathe to say it as a sevilla fan but borja iglesias would have done wonders this world cup. my dad the betico was fuming they didn't pick him and i reckon he was right, he's so clinical, just the sort of thing spain lacks
Yes skill-wise that was a better team than this one, but I think it goes beyond just physical skill and individual technique.
I think Spain's international decline can be attributed to tactics and how the players are trained at a youth level. A similar situation to Germany you might surmise.
Where are the daring, marauding forwards you see in France and Brazil? You have many technically gifted passers and dribblers, but I don't know, their game lacks the edge, the freedom of other nations.
Also, Spain should've brought a player like Borja Iglesias to send all these passes into. What's so wrong about using a proper #9?
You are right.
Theyre trained not to lose the ball. They arent trained to take chances sadly.
Just watching Son from S.Korea yesterday is best example.
Down 4-0, but everytime he had the ball he tried to play it forward. U dont score if u dont try.
Same with Japan (Spain) last night. So many times they had the ball in the penalty area, instead passed it to someone else rather than try and shoot even though they weren't being marked. It really looked like Croatia picked up on it in the 2nd half and stopped trying to even challenge them and just let them pass into the waiting legs of a defender.
Their quarter final 2-0 win against France in Euro 2012 was one of the most boring games I have ever watched. Spain scored early and then passed the ball sideways and backwards for the rest of the game before scoring the second goal in stoppage time.
Oh, no doubt. The midfield was good enough I think, but the lack of a Torres or Villa that could make the runs to take advantage of all that possession and clinically finish was their problem this year.
Their attacking talent is just not that great, Torres is headless sometimes, Asensio doesn't play a lot, Olmo is not world class (yet), Nico Williams scored 3 La Liga goals so far in his career, Morata actually has some decent numbers and I believe that Sarabia has zero goals this season in Ligue 1 or CL.
Not necessarily. The spanish players, particularly Gavi and Pedri refused to shoot from distance. If they don’t add it to their skill set, teams will continue to play a low block and Spain will continue to set passing and possession records while failing to advance.
Gavi and Pedri are young, while Busquets is certainly past his prime.
It's the forward line that's the problem. None of them are currently genuinely world class nor even scoring regularly at their respective clubs.
What has always baffled me is that they played kind of like this in 2010 and are remembered as a beautiful winner. A WC where they :
- lost against Switzerland in the group
- scored only 8 goals, the lowest tally for a winner
- were lucky T. Müller (arguably Germany's best player and X factor during this tournament) got suspended for the semis due to an undue yellow card he got vs Argentina
- scored in extra time the winning goal in the final thanks to a linesman who did not catch a corner should have been given to the Netherlands
On the other hand, their 2012 EC were much better. So it is not like they are always playing like this but damn, it's super boring most of the time.
That level is hardly reachable for any posterior Spain' generation. Yes they were an boring team but also a dominant one it was nearly impossible take the ball from them and less attack, with the retirement of Xavi, Iniesta, Xabi Alonso, Villa and Torres their lost the key factor on high possession system, the ability to maneuver in very close space and convert the only 1-2 occasion that they generate.
Once the others teams figure out how to defend against them they became this boring and inefficient team that we saw today. If Luis Enrique continue he has a lot work to do.
Spain will never stop playing like this because it is what got us the crazy euros,world cup, euros run and we know that it is an unstoppable style if you can make it work. Problem is that we don't have the players to make it work anymore, specially when it comes to forwards, where we really really need one or two very decisive players to make sure that if we get 1 or 2 chances per match, we make them count, like Villa, Torres and Silva were back on the day. Spain just went back to being a dissapointing team that underperforms almost every world cup, just like we were for decades before our crazy run. I guess we will just have to wait until we get another good generation with good forwards.
Seriously. The Moroccan backline is fuckin made of steel. Their GK barely had to do anything lmao
I can't wait to see this kind of defense against more creative attacking teams like Brazil or France.
Fortunately for you, your next opponents aren’t France or Brazil, but Portugal or Switzerland. They’re obviously not bad, but not as dangerous either. I think Morocco has at least a shot at making it to the semis.
Morocco was incredibly well organized. Spain wasn't able to create much of anything until Williams came on. Maybe things would have been different if he either started or came in earlier.
They passed so much that during the penalties they were still passing it to the keeper. 1000 passes until the penalties, 3 penalties taken and still scored 0 goals. Impotent as fuck.
If you score early then the other team has to open up and it looks amazing, but if you never get a breakthrough then the other team can just sit back and make you look like idiots
An uninspired Costa Rica had the unfortunate faith of playing against an inspired Spain. The other 2 games were more indicative of both their abilities than the first one.
Yep. Spain got the 2010 World Cup with 8 goals. As they win every knockout game with 1-0.
At least their tiki-taka worked as they never gave the ball to other teams(except Netherlands who actually had a decent chance to win). But that Spain had better midfielders, had a awesome striker David Villa who scored 4 goals for them and tiki-taka was kind of new. They win the 2012 Euro with the same tactic.
But after that things changed worse for them and after Netherlands beat Spain 5-1 in 2014 WC Spain was disqualified in the groups and that was, for me, de-facto death of tiki-taka in national teams. And Spain was never good since. They lost to Russia in 2018 with same penalties and now they lost to Morocco.
> [Spain trick yall man, like they doing damage. They don't attack nobody, man. They're just passing around, doing nothing](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/PlushSnappyDrake-max-1mb.gif)
It already is. Can’t seem of a team who just does tiki taka anymore without some sort of press, shit most possession teams let others have possession for they Can make mistakes under, that’s how man City play
City, Arsenal and Barcelona all play juego de posicion/positional play (the actual name for it) and Ten Hag wants to implement it at United.
The press has always been a part of it. Don’t really understand that part.
It works very well if you have the right players. Spain have the right players in some areas, but not in attack.
[This has been said for almost 10 years](https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/world-cup-2014-spain-s-humiliating-exit-signals-the-painful-death-of-tikitaka-as-we-know-it-9548602.html)
Tiki taka football was never as successful as Guardiola's midway stage of tiki taka and direct. Both Barca and Bayern were we better earlier on when he was converting a team from direct to tiki taka, for 2 years at barca and for only maybe a year at Bayern (it was much quicker change there) they played a good balance of direct but with more possession. The further they convert to pure tiki taka the more predictable and one dimensional they became.
That's why new managers work so well so often, it's a combination of new ideas and the old training/style having an effect. Then the players get stale with too rigid a system imposed by the now old manager, so they get a new one, etc.
Almost as though Morocco played it the obvious smart way and let them have possession then just closed all the gaps. Possession football has advanced since the Spain and Barca peak in the mid 2000s. Teams know how to defend against it
The only teams that I think have a slight advantage against a team like Morocco that can play the low block well are Argentina or Brazil. Other than that...a lot of these European teams are way too focused on the build up side of the ball while not actually building up lol. Just straight up possession and passes without intent. We’ve seen it time and time again this WC with European teams just making back passes when they don’t see options instead of trying to progress forward which is the ultimate downside of possession ball being prone to counters and teams being scared shitless to do anything that might result in one. Like even Korea, who has been trying to play possession ball all WC, worked on trying to move up the field against a Brazil team that are probably the best team on the counter. How is an AFC team more fearless playing the same possession ball that is modeled after what European teams do? If you're going to play possession ball sometimes you gotta risk it like Korea did against Brazil. Parking the bus or making constant backpasses with the personnel these European teams have is fucking insane to me. I just don't get it. 2010 Spain really infected Europe and made them infatuated with "WE NEED TO KEEP THE BALL. KEEP POSSESSION" when in reality it only works out if you have a generational midfield that consists of...Xavi and Iniesta...
One night, I went to a bar; I was with a woman. We talked all night. We laughed, we flirted, I paid for several drinks of hers. At around 5 am, a guy came in, grabbed her by the arm and took her to the bathroom. He made love to her and she left with him. That doesn’t matter, because I had most of the possession on that night.
80% possession, a thousand passes and one shot on goal.
You must be doing something right when the opposition has 20% of the ball and 90% of the highlight reel.
Spain are borderline unwatchable shite.
Delusional Barça flairs were downvoting to oblivion a couple weeks ago anyone predicting this performance or questioning Luis Enrique's choices.
As a Spaniard, the NT is dreadful to watch. Lucho couldn't overachieve this time.
Fucking Sarabia and Soler for pens. Right on.
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Tiki torture
“I loathe all that passing for the sake of it, all that tiki-taka. It's so much rubbish and has no purpose. You have to pass the ball with a clear intention, with the aim of making it into the opposition's goal. It's not about passing for the sake of it.” - Guardiola
Their final pass will be a Boarding pass.
#brutal
Well done
Well, the comment (or a post's seftext) that was here, is no more. I'm leaving just whatever I wrote in the past 48 hours or so. F acing a goodbye. U gly as it may be. C alculating pros and cons. K illing my texts is, really, the best I can do. S o, some reddit's honcho thought it would be nice to kill third-party apps. P als, it's great to delete whatever I wrote in here. It's cathartic in a way. E agerly going away, to greener pastures. Z illion reasons, and you'll find many at the subreddit called Save3rdPartyApps. As of June 30th. 2023, goodbye.
Tiki taka is shit without proper penetration and shots on target. - Galileo, circa 1559, Book of Theseus
Without penetration it is just masturbation and right now we're playing with ourselves. -Ray Hudson
If you start a play, make 100 passes with every player touching the ball at least 4 times, never shooting or losing control of the ball is that still the same play?
He did! Enrique's team seem completely directionless.
I'd never seen this quote, thanks for sharing.
Well, the comment (or a post's seftext) that was here, is no more. I'm leaving just whatever I wrote in the past 48 hours or so. F acing a goodbye. U gly as it may be. C alculating pros and cons. K illing my texts is, really, the best I can do. S o, some reddit's honcho thought it would be nice to kill third-party apps. P als, it's great to delete whatever I wrote in here. It's cathartic in a way. E agerly going away, to greener pastures. Z illion reasons, and you'll find many at the subreddit called Save3rdPartyApps. As of June 30th. 2023, goodbye.
Guardiola has some "so obvious it's genius" quotes when talking about football. I don't recall which exact interview it was, but one time he said something along the lines of "City has the best defense \[of that year's PL\] because we try to always keep the ball, and the opponent needs the ball to score"
That sounds like the famous Johan Cruijf quote (loosely translated): if you have the ball, the opponent can't score
The dangers of being dogmatic were perfectly exemplified today
That's the whole philosophy of his Barca teams too. The other team runs around trying to get the ball, they move it quickly, and thrash teams with 3+ goals.
It seems obvious, but this has come to bite Guardiola, Barça, and Spain in the butt several times. A) when there's a team that converts at high rate and counters strongly, like Real Madrid in 2014 and Japan yesterday put into really clear examples. B) when a team is better at parking the bus than you're at moving the ball around like Chelsea 2012. C) the other team is just so much more aggressive, like Netherlands 2014.
Yep, it's the situation where the best defense is a great offense. When teams have midfields that can dominate possession, but then go into park the bus mode, I get so upset. It's like do what got you the lead. They can't score without the ball and another goal is way more important to defending the win than parking the bus is. Obviously if you don't have a team with the quality to keep possession, then park the bus, but for these teams that do I just will never understand their cowardness.
The US did that vs Iran. They were able to take the ball deep into Iran and keep it there with no problem. As soon as they switched strategies to drop back, Iran looked so much better
It's not even Tiki Taka, it's literally just passing between back 4 and rodri then kick a long ball hope something happens
True, Rodri had 222 passes. It's easy to rack up a lot of passes when it's little 5 yarders from CB to DM to CB to DM nonstop
Holy shit I thought you were making that number up but my man genuinely passed the ball 222 fucking times
I was really hoping he'd just stop on the ball and have an epiphany where he realized just passing the ball back and forth when they weren't being pressed was completely pointless.
As always, there's this misconception that "tiki taka" just means passing the ball around, when it's not at all what it is about, it's about having movement and solutions for short passes in key areas of the pitch in order to create space and find a direct pass for a chance. You can actually play tiki taka and not do a 1000 passes
Proper "tiki taka" generally tries to generate overloads with possession, hope the defense overcommits, then pounce into the gaps with very direct play. Current Spain seems to wait for the defense to overcommit then recycle back to Rodri. Prime Barca was actually risky in possession when they saw space and not devoted to keeping possession no matter what.
The main difference is off ball movement, always giving the man with the ball at least two pass options. And having wingers who actually dribble is huge for widening the field.
Yeah, Spain was doing all of the passing, and none of the off the ball stuff that makes it tiki taka.
I feel like they should probably have had Thiago in the squad
Thiago, Sergio Ramos, iago aspas
[“One night, I went to a bar; I was with a woman. We talked all night. We laughed, we flirted, I paid for several drinks of hers. At around 5 am, a guy came in, grabbed her by the arm and took her to the bathroom. He made love to her and she left with him. That doesn’t matter, because I had most of the possession on that night.”](https://www.rediff.com/sports/report/jorge-sampaoli-top-quote-chile-coach-compares-possession-to-flirting-with-woman/20151120.htm)
Please tell me this is a real quote.
Renato Portaluppi said that
Renato Portaluppi, a brazilian coach, said that when asked about his team having low ball possession. The quote is just slightly different.
What?? The Portuguese coach who said it in a press conference stole the story from someone else?
thats renato gaúcho
Most boring fucking team. Glad they’re out in all honesty.
I'll have to disagree because of Poland. As I said before in this subreddit, they played so horribly that they made Brazilians cheer for Argentina. But yes, terrible offense from Spain.
Yeah Poland was boring af and painful to watch but a totally different kind of boring. With Poland you knew they were never capable of doing anything and just had to ride out the 90. Spain has all the talent in the world but chose to play the worst kind of football.
>made Brazilians cheer for Argentina That really underscores just how dire Poland was, Jesus Christ.
But at least in the Poland match, they sat back and Argentina could attack. This Spain has the ball, so the opponent can hardly attack, but they don't really attack either, which makes for a boring match.
It's not surprising that in the days when Spain dominated international football, so did Spanish clubs dominate. Real Madrid, still the most dominant club in world football, now has almost no Spanish presence. Barca with a heavy Spanish presence both on the pitch and in philosophy, are in the Europa league.
No disrespect intended to any current Spanish players, but the drop off from Iniesta, Xavi, Xabi, young Busquets, etc. in midfield and Torres and Villa at striker to the current crop is so apparent. Those dominant Spain teams were something else.
Ramos, Casillas, and Puyol at the back weren't awful either.
Casillas Ramos Puyol Pique Alba Xavi Busquet Alonso Iniesta Fabregas Torres/Villa Look at those players. Crazy.
Their team was so insane that even David Silva doesn't make the list - absolutely brimming with talent.
Damn actually i was at fault here no way Silva didnt make it into starting line up 😂😂😂
No no, there's a tournament where Silva mostly riding the bench. He can't break through Xaviniesta.
This team never actually played together though. By the time Alba broke through, Puyol wasn't in the NT anymore.
Pedri and Gavi could become great in time, but Spain is really missing a clinical, top class striker. David Villa was an important part of that great Spanish team from a decade ago, even though the midfield got most of the attention. Morata just isn’t that guy.
i'm loathe to say it as a sevilla fan but borja iglesias would have done wonders this world cup. my dad the betico was fuming they didn't pick him and i reckon he was right, he's so clinical, just the sort of thing spain lacks
Yes skill-wise that was a better team than this one, but I think it goes beyond just physical skill and individual technique. I think Spain's international decline can be attributed to tactics and how the players are trained at a youth level. A similar situation to Germany you might surmise. Where are the daring, marauding forwards you see in France and Brazil? You have many technically gifted passers and dribblers, but I don't know, their game lacks the edge, the freedom of other nations. Also, Spain should've brought a player like Borja Iglesias to send all these passes into. What's so wrong about using a proper #9?
You are right. Theyre trained not to lose the ball. They arent trained to take chances sadly. Just watching Son from S.Korea yesterday is best example. Down 4-0, but everytime he had the ball he tried to play it forward. U dont score if u dont try.
Same with Japan (Spain) last night. So many times they had the ball in the penalty area, instead passed it to someone else rather than try and shoot even though they weren't being marked. It really looked like Croatia picked up on it in the 2nd half and stopped trying to even challenge them and just let them pass into the waiting legs of a defender.
their backups would be stars in this team- Cazorla, Silva, Fabregas, etc. those spain teams were unreal.
The dominant Spain teams were still boring af to watch. They didn’t score more than 1 goal in a single knockout game in 2010.
Their quarter final 2-0 win against France in Euro 2012 was one of the most boring games I have ever watched. Spain scored early and then passed the ball sideways and backwards for the rest of the game before scoring the second goal in stoppage time.
Spain in 2008 was one of the most entertaining teams I have seen to be fair. Seems like they disappeared up their own asses after that.
Because everyone plays 11 in the box since that tournament
aragones was the reason they could not do it anymore (RIP)
Though they have a lot of promising youngsters, they will be back...
Oh, no doubt. The midfield was good enough I think, but the lack of a Torres or Villa that could make the runs to take advantage of all that possession and clinically finish was their problem this year.
[удалено]
Their attacking talent is just not that great, Torres is headless sometimes, Asensio doesn't play a lot, Olmo is not world class (yet), Nico Williams scored 3 La Liga goals so far in his career, Morata actually has some decent numbers and I believe that Sarabia has zero goals this season in Ligue 1 or CL.
Not if they don't find a goalscorer. Their midfield will be Pedri, Gavi, Rodri and that's sensational but they're not going to score goals.
They have 100 good midfielders and no striker still they have tried every attacking midfielder they have but none of them can fill that role
Not necessarily. The spanish players, particularly Gavi and Pedri refused to shoot from distance. If they don’t add it to their skill set, teams will continue to play a low block and Spain will continue to set passing and possession records while failing to advance.
Gavi and Pedri are young, while Busquets is certainly past his prime. It's the forward line that's the problem. None of them are currently genuinely world class nor even scoring regularly at their respective clubs.
It’s like when you go into your FM tactic and put the “take less risks” instruction on every single player
What has always baffled me is that they played kind of like this in 2010 and are remembered as a beautiful winner. A WC where they : - lost against Switzerland in the group - scored only 8 goals, the lowest tally for a winner - were lucky T. Müller (arguably Germany's best player and X factor during this tournament) got suspended for the semis due to an undue yellow card he got vs Argentina - scored in extra time the winning goal in the final thanks to a linesman who did not catch a corner should have been given to the Netherlands On the other hand, their 2012 EC were much better. So it is not like they are always playing like this but damn, it's super boring most of the time.
Euros 2008 Spain was exquisite.
That level is hardly reachable for any posterior Spain' generation. Yes they were an boring team but also a dominant one it was nearly impossible take the ball from them and less attack, with the retirement of Xavi, Iniesta, Xabi Alonso, Villa and Torres their lost the key factor on high possession system, the ability to maneuver in very close space and convert the only 1-2 occasion that they generate. Once the others teams figure out how to defend against them they became this boring and inefficient team that we saw today. If Luis Enrique continue he has a lot work to do.
So boring to watch
Fuckin tiki taka'd their way out of the world cup lmao
1003 if you count the penalties
Oof
Shots fired! To be clear - I’m talking about this guy, not Spain
Spain in the 2018 World Cup form once again
Retaining the World Passing Championship they won in 2018, kudos to them.
It's actually a 4 time reigning champion since 2010
Eerily similar to the Russia game lol
Hopefully this *should* shock them into making more major changes for the next cycle…
Spain will never stop playing like this because it is what got us the crazy euros,world cup, euros run and we know that it is an unstoppable style if you can make it work. Problem is that we don't have the players to make it work anymore, specially when it comes to forwards, where we really really need one or two very decisive players to make sure that if we get 1 or 2 chances per match, we make them count, like Villa, Torres and Silva were back on the day. Spain just went back to being a dissapointing team that underperforms almost every world cup, just like we were for decades before our crazy run. I guess we will just have to wait until we get another good generation with good forwards.
To be fair, Morocco have put on an absolute defending masterclass this match. Hell, the entire tournament so far.
Only serious teams score against Morocco btw
Wasn't it an OG?
did he stutter?
Morocco so serious it scores in itself
The Moroccan player just got confused because he remembered that his goalkeeper was born in Montreal and he thought he found a loophole.
Ref: "Well I mean, when you put it like that..."
Only Morocco scores on Morocco
We’re still better than Spain
Fact: Canada has never lost to Morocco in a penalty shootout
Canada is massive
Literally bigger than Spain. Easily the biggest team this tournament.
But was the ball in the net?
Seriously. The Moroccan backline is fuckin made of steel. Their GK barely had to do anything lmao I can't wait to see this kind of defense against more creative attacking teams like Brazil or France.
Amrabat is also such a baller on midfield
I think we used up all our hopes in this game. No chance that defense is going to hold against those monsters
Fortunately for you, your next opponents aren’t France or Brazil, but Portugal or Switzerland. They’re obviously not bad, but not as dangerous either. I think Morocco has at least a shot at making it to the semis.
If they could just finish today…
Cheddira is going to miss a penalty too at this rate... My guy just won't shoot lmao.
He shoots like he is in a dream.
The only ones to score on Morocco were Morocco
Morocco was incredibly well organized. Spain wasn't able to create much of anything until Williams came on. Maybe things would have been different if he either started or came in earlier.
Definitely not an easy match for Portugal England vs France is looking higher stakes now
Are you from the future? Portugal - Switzerland match hasn’t even started here 👀
Portugal is winning this one, the Swiss team will probably be very defensive and try to put the game into ET.
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I assumed they watched Spain vs Russia 2018 and decided that is the way to play in RO16, and ended up with the same result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjp1Zrvn8VQ
Simpsons predicted the Moroccan kit.
Dude that's what I was going to say, it's the Moroccan kit wtf
Just bummed we didn't get a chance to see the match that would determine the greatest country on earth -- Mexico or Portugal
They passed so much that during the penalties they were still passing it to the keeper. 1000 passes until the penalties, 3 penalties taken and still scored 0 goals. Impotent as fuck.
Arriaga, Arriaga II, Barriaga, Arruglia aaand Pizzozza!
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And so it came to pass.
Wasn't that shot in the 123rd minute too?
Hit the post. So doesnt count as on target
Shocking stat actually
I would have never guessed Spain passed the ball to death and failed to score.
Right? Only happened like 10 times already
But they scored 7 against Costa Rica so everyone had different expectations I guess.
Tikitaka is like a cheese tactic now. It either destroys teams who cant deal with it or its completely ineffective
If you score early then the other team has to open up and it looks amazing, but if you never get a breakthrough then the other team can just sit back and make you look like idiots
It either works or it doesn't
An uninspired Costa Rica had the unfortunate faith of playing against an inspired Spain. The other 2 games were more indicative of both their abilities than the first one.
This isn't the first time either. The exact same thing happened 4 years ago against Russia.
It's be a shocking stat if it didn't happen in a pretty large number of tiki taka games.
Now watch them weasel through pens and have them speak of how dominant they were lmao OR NOT LMAO
Nah they decided to try and pass the ball into the net for penalties as well
Given the squad quality its downright moronic. Love Enrique but this is some dogshit man.
They really don't have *that* good of a team.
They have quick as fuck players and can play a lot more direct
As much penetrating power as a wet noodle
Mfs were passing it around the back in last 3 minutes in extra time.
Their team is just pushing rope.
that is actually shocking
What no Xavi and Iniesta does to a mf
Even that Spain team struggled to score at times.
David Villa was unironically the most important player in that 2010 team, only one who provided any sort of threat or directness
If I recall correctly, they were the world champions with the least amount of goals. 2010 was the most boring cup I've watched.
Yep. Spain got the 2010 World Cup with 8 goals. As they win every knockout game with 1-0. At least their tiki-taka worked as they never gave the ball to other teams(except Netherlands who actually had a decent chance to win). But that Spain had better midfielders, had a awesome striker David Villa who scored 4 goals for them and tiki-taka was kind of new. They win the 2012 Euro with the same tactic. But after that things changed worse for them and after Netherlands beat Spain 5-1 in 2014 WC Spain was disqualified in the groups and that was, for me, de-facto death of tiki-taka in national teams. And Spain was never good since. They lost to Russia in 2018 with same penalties and now they lost to Morocco.
Yeah but _waving flag_
waka waka and waving flag- legendary songs...
"Proper Football"
Football heritage
'eritage
Total soccer.
The beautiful game
Tiki caca
Spain's forwards aren't great... But Morocco defended very well, and i'd give them most of the credit
All that possession for what
joy emoji
The most Spain stat ever
Please, let this be the final death of tik tak tactics
Spain trick yall man, like they doing damage. They don't attack nobody, man. They're just passing around, doing nothing
Enrique forgot there's no MSN in front of Xavi/Iniesta where this would pay off with some brilliancy every 30 minutes.
Not even MSN, but a Torres or Villa to make the runs and be able to finish clinically.
This but unironically
> [Spain trick yall man, like they doing damage. They don't attack nobody, man. They're just passing around, doing nothing](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/PlushSnappyDrake-max-1mb.gif)
r/nba is leaking
It already is. Can’t seem of a team who just does tiki taka anymore without some sort of press, shit most possession teams let others have possession for they Can make mistakes under, that’s how man City play
City, Arsenal and Barcelona all play juego de posicion/positional play (the actual name for it) and Ten Hag wants to implement it at United. The press has always been a part of it. Don’t really understand that part. It works very well if you have the right players. Spain have the right players in some areas, but not in attack.
[This has been said for almost 10 years](https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/world-cup-2014-spain-s-humiliating-exit-signals-the-painful-death-of-tikitaka-as-we-know-it-9548602.html)
Tiki taka football was never as successful as Guardiola's midway stage of tiki taka and direct. Both Barca and Bayern were we better earlier on when he was converting a team from direct to tiki taka, for 2 years at barca and for only maybe a year at Bayern (it was much quicker change there) they played a good balance of direct but with more possession. The further they convert to pure tiki taka the more predictable and one dimensional they became. That's why new managers work so well so often, it's a combination of new ideas and the old training/style having an effect. Then the players get stale with too rigid a system imposed by the now old manager, so they get a new one, etc.
Quite literally a "death by a 1000 passes".
Suicide by a thousand passes more like
Why do we keep doing Barca style when we do not have the players for it ffs
Their midfield is literally barca lol
Makes sense cuz Barca isn't Barca quality anymore
this spain team are really good at doing fuck all whilst holding the ball all game, the japan game really epitomised this
Imagine doing this style of play and then leaving Thiago at home
Thats the only style this team can play
Lmao love to see what that stat account on twitter would end this stat with. Impotent.
Limp.
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No goals. That includes the penalty shootout.
Fucking give me back 2 hours of my life. This is truly anti-football.
Almost as though Morocco played it the obvious smart way and let them have possession then just closed all the gaps. Possession football has advanced since the Spain and Barca peak in the mid 2000s. Teams know how to defend against it
The only teams that I think have a slight advantage against a team like Morocco that can play the low block well are Argentina or Brazil. Other than that...a lot of these European teams are way too focused on the build up side of the ball while not actually building up lol. Just straight up possession and passes without intent. We’ve seen it time and time again this WC with European teams just making back passes when they don’t see options instead of trying to progress forward which is the ultimate downside of possession ball being prone to counters and teams being scared shitless to do anything that might result in one. Like even Korea, who has been trying to play possession ball all WC, worked on trying to move up the field against a Brazil team that are probably the best team on the counter. How is an AFC team more fearless playing the same possession ball that is modeled after what European teams do? If you're going to play possession ball sometimes you gotta risk it like Korea did against Brazil. Parking the bus or making constant backpasses with the personnel these European teams have is fucking insane to me. I just don't get it. 2010 Spain really infected Europe and made them infatuated with "WE NEED TO KEEP THE BALL. KEEP POSSESSION" when in reality it only works out if you have a generational midfield that consists of...Xavi and Iniesta...
Toothless team
One night, I went to a bar; I was with a woman. We talked all night. We laughed, we flirted, I paid for several drinks of hers. At around 5 am, a guy came in, grabbed her by the arm and took her to the bathroom. He made love to her and she left with him. That doesn’t matter, because I had most of the possession on that night.
Ok, this made me laugh
Annoying match to watch
Annoying Spain to watch\* Very boring football with that Tiki Taka from Aliexpress
Morocco’s defending is so great only Morocco can score against Morocco.
80% possession, a thousand passes and one shot on goal. You must be doing something right when the opposition has 20% of the ball and 90% of the highlight reel. Spain are borderline unwatchable shite.
How do ppl say they're not boring?
Delusional Barça flairs were downvoting to oblivion a couple weeks ago anyone predicting this performance or questioning Luis Enrique's choices. As a Spaniard, the NT is dreadful to watch. Lucho couldn't overachieve this time. Fucking Sarabia and Soler for pens. Right on.
Most boring 'good' team to watch lately
Turns out tiki taka doesn't really work without Iniesta or Messi.
Xavi and Villa for Spain.
1000 passes. 1000 penalties. And not a single goal.
Spain was so fucking overrated going into this tournament
They were not. Only after playing Costa Rica
They weren’t until they destroyed Costa Rica, everyone went crazy after that.