The Xavi myth: Barcelona's summer transfer targets prove tiki-taka is dead

Robin Bairner

• 12 Mar 2022 17:10 GMT
• 4 min read

Xavi’s return to Barcelona was expected to bring about a renaissance for the type of tiki-taka football that the midfielder was so famed for during his playing days.

Instead, the pragmatism that Xavi has shown with both his team selections and the transfer moves that Barca have made have simply confirmed one thing: tiki-taka is dead.

Now, this is not a criticism of Xavi or what he has achieved so far at Camp Nou, let’s be clear about that. He is reacting not only to the squad that he has available, but also how football has developed over the course of the last decade.

It is clear that the head coach has absolutely no intention of bringing tiki-taka back.

Related articles

Xavi adds fuel to Haaland transfer fire

The three big clubs who want to sign Araujo

'I'm in no hurry!" - Olmo denies rumours of summer move to Barca

What is tiki-taka?

Tiki-taka was a style of football that was characterised by short, sharp passing moves, in which a premium was placed on possession of the ball. To illustrate how successful Barcelona were at their tactic during their peak, they went on a run of 317 successive matches in all competition during which they had more of the ball than their opponents.

This required having hugely skilled technical players in their team, such as Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi, though in truth all 11 Barca stars of that era were inevitably comfortable in possession.

Xavi more direct that Koeman

For all the talk about Xavi’s love of tiki-taka, he has actually adopted a more direct approach to the game than Koeman.

Although the new head coach has overseen just over half of Barcelona’s league matches this season, 10 of the 14 games in which Barca have had least possession have been under his watch. Indeed, one of only two occasions in which the Camp Nou side have had less than 50% of the ball was under Xavi (the other was interim boss Sergi Barjuan).

One of the sticks used to beat Koeman was his tendency to rely on crosses to Luuk de Jong when the chips were down. Before Xavi was furnished with a succession of offensive arrivals in January, he offered a similar solution at difficult moments. Four of the seven games in which Barcelona have delivered the most crosses this season were under him.

Such an approach was never valid during the purest version of tiki-taka in the Pep Guardiola years.

Again, let’s reiterate, all this is fine - but it’s not tiki-taka.

Haaland, Lukaku and Werner being targeted

Xavi, meanwhile, is happy to continue with the formula that is bringing his club success, as revealed by the players he is chasing in the summer transfer window.

Erling Haaland, the burly Borussia Dortmund striker, is a fine player indeed, but not a player who would fit into a traditional tiki-taka framework, much as Zlatan Ibrahimovic failed to do under Guardiola. Of course, Xavi has shown that he will not be as dogmatic as Pep and will use the forward in his most effective manner – but this will only take Barca further away from their tiki-taka roots.

And Mundo Deportivo’s report on Saturday that Chelsea’s Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner are being considered as alternatives for Haaland backs that up.

Tiki-taka was about lithe, technical players working space between and behind defenders with slick passing play. None of these forward options offer that – they are modern centre forwards who would be fine additions for Barca.

What Xavi is doing at Barcelona now is not tiki-taka, but it is successful. And that’s the main thing.