I’ve been thinking about this for a while.  Those who criticise the characteristically Spanish style of passing football will accept that:

Tiki-taka is associated with flair, creativity, and touch,^[16] [...]

but will also argue that:

[it] can also be taken to a “slow, directionless extreme” that sacrifices effectiveness for aesthetics.^[14]

Yet whilst “exciting” is what football aficionados always used to expect from their beautiful game, it’s the word “fascinating” which is more often than not used about Spanish – and FC Barcelona – matches.  There is a cat-and-mouse feel as opposing teams – characteristically turned into victims by the gameplay employed – are drawn quite against their better judgement out of their good intentions and pre-game strategies by the patient and wise spatial intelligence of those who – one day – decided to play to their strengths:

Raphael Honigstein describes the tiki-taka played by the Spanish national team at the 2010 FIFA World Cup as “a radical style that only evolved over the course of four years,” arising from Spain’s decision in 2006 that “they weren’t physical and tough enough to outmuscle opponents, so instead wanted to concentrate on monopolising the ball.”^[11]

Necessity is the mother of invention.  And what an invention.  I’ve argued before on these pages that tiki-taka reminds me so very much of video-console football games, as the players progress in precise diagonals across the field of play:

Barcelona, at their best, are a wonder to behold.  All those triangular passes which draw the opposition forwards – and aim to leave gaping spaces into which they can then dart …

Cat and mouse football.

Just like playing a game of Playstation football, in fact.

Now if you never have, I suggest you do so sharpish – and you’ll see exactly what I mean.  The system of passing – the glory, for example, of taking so many corners away from the goal and via short balls to retain possession – suits entirely the pixels of virtual gaming.  Watching Barcelona’s “carousel” in action is to watch the virtual realities of videogames translated into the offline practice of multimillion-pound soccer.

There’s a PhD to be written about this: how the virtual world impacts the real world and changes entirely the way we do things.

Barcelona, then, is the first virtual football team made real.

But I wonder if I was entirely right to attribute some of Spanish football’s grace and favour to the videogame generation.  Perhaps there is an older cat-and-mouse tradition – just as theatrical too – which Spanish footballing culture has subliminally, quite unconsciously, drawn on.

Set aside how you feel about the subject of bullfighting.  Accept that for many Spaniards – and certainly whilst I was living there – it was more culture than sport (the newspapers always defined it as the former); more a narrative on the subject of life than a bloody and gratuitous waste of a noble animal’s existence.  Accepting, then, that such was the case, let’s have a look at its structure:

The modern corrida is highly ritualized, with three distinct parts or tercios, the start of each of which is announced by a trumpet sound.

There is a sense, therefore, in its three acts which lead up to inevitable death, of overlording process and yet – at the same time – room for flashes of true brilliance and real individuality.  In the first part, then:

[...] the matador observes how the bull charges as capes are thrust by the banderilleros. He also notes vision problems, unusual head movements, or if the bull favors a part of the ring called a querencia, or territory. A bull trying to reach its querencia is often more dangerous than a bull that is attacking the cape directly. The initial attack by the matador is called suerte de capote (“act of the cape”), and there are a number of fundamental “lances” or passes that matadors make; the most common being the verónica.

Next, two picadores enter the arena, each armed with a lance or vara. The picadores are mounted on large heavily padded and blindfolded horses. The bull is encouraged to attack the horse which is protected by its padding and appears to treat the attack with stoic patience. The picador stabs a mound of muscle (morrillo) on the bull’s neck leading to the animal’s first loss of blood. This loss of blood further weakens the bull and makes him ready for the next stage. Padded protection for the horses was mandated relatively recently in history and up to the 1930s the horses were gored and killed by the bull in the ring.

As the picador stabs the top of the bull with the lance, the bull charges and attempts to lift the picador’s horse with its neck muscles. This causes further weakening of the neck. If the picador does his job well, the bull will hold its head and horns lower during the following stages of the fight. This makes him slightly less dangerous while enabling the matador to perform the passes of modern bullfighting.

This stage is a mandatory step in the corrida, and regulations require that the plaza judge ensures a certain number of hits are made before it is completed. In some rings a torero may request more or fewer hits in order to correct any perceived defects.

As we can see from the above, the objective is to simultaneously weaken and bewilder the enemy as well as test for any strengths it may – even so – continue to demonstrate.  The cat-and-mouse instincts of Spanish and Barcelona football clearly find their parallels in the above.

The second stage sees a further weakening of the opposition as:

[...] the three banderilleros each attempt to plant two barbed sticks (banderillas, literally “little flags” as they are decorated with paper in the local colors) in the bull’s shoulders. These further weaken the enormous ridges of neck and shoulder muscle (which set fighting bulls apart from ordinary cattle) through loss of blood, while also frequently spurring the bull into making more ferocious charges. By this point the bull has lost a significant amount of blood and is exhausted. The matador then enters with his cape and sword, tiring the bull further with several runs at the cape.

The process of wearing down the physical and mental capacity of the enemy is not only relentless and unremitting but also highly proceduralised.  Whilst toreros earn their followings and are famously different one from another, none of them ever steps outside the scripted boundaries of any of these stages.

The final stage leads to death – or, in football, to that late goal which is bound to come after so many waves of debilitating attacks:

[...] the matador re-enters the ring alone with a small red cape or muleta in one hand and a sword in the other. This cape is stretched with a wooden dowel and, in right-handed passes, the sword as well.

Having dedicated the bull to an individual or the whole audience, the matador uses his cape to attract the bull in a series of passes, both demonstrating his control over it and risking his life by getting especially close to it. The red colour of the cape is a matter of tradition, as bulls are actually color blind: they attack moving objects (the real reason that a red colored cape is used is that any blood stains on it will be less noticeable). There are a number of distinct styles of passes, each with its own name. The fundamental pass with the muleta is the “natural”, traditionally meaning a left-handed pass with the muleta without the aid of the sword to prop it up.

The faena (“job”) is the entire performance with the muleta, which is usually broken down into a series of ”tandas” or “series”. A typical tanda might consist of three to five basic passes and then a finishing touch, or “remate”, such as a “pase de pecho”, or “pase de desprecio”. Spectacular passes are celebrated by the audience with shouts of “¡ole!“. The faena ends with a final series of passes in which the matador with a muleta attempts to manoeuvre the bull into a position to stab it between the shoulder blades and through the aorta or heart. The entire part of the bullfight with the muleta is called el tercio de muerte (“third of death”) suerte de muleta (“act of muleta”).

And so we see how tiki-taka is so fundamentally informed by Spanish bullfighting.  Just as passes, beauty and honour – aesthetics and process, in fact – are as important in the latter as the result itself, so passes, beauty and honour form fundamental elements of the former.  It’s not only what you do in Spanish national football, it’s also how.

The ball as a bull; the footballer as bullfighter.

Simple and obvious when you come to think about it.  Impossible, that is, for it to be any other way.