TIKI-TAKA SOCCER LEAGUE is a cosmopolitan community united for the love and passion for soccer. A project based on the intention of promoting and strengthening social relationships and networks. Teammates that become friends, friends that become family, a family that makes you feel like home.
THE BARCELONA WAY
'We don't worry about scoring goals, we focus more on making them'
Hi and welcome to the online home of Tiki Taka Soccer.
We are a Football Coaching School based in Leeds, England. We hope you enjoy our website; why not look at the services we offer or get in touch.
Football is “The Beautiful Game”
Westrongly believe that “The Beautiful Game” has created a Ball for players to play with in a team; with the intention that players shallkeep the ball, be patient with it and keep possession of it, not to boot it, not to get rid of it, not to rush and kick. it .
Our fundamental aim has been and will always be to develop players; technically to the highest levels and to play beautifully as a team; not only individually.
Our coaching methods are inspired from the best coaching methods in the world aka Barcelona FC; because they focus on the individual technical know howand the collective know how, know where and know when to play for the team.
At Tiki Taka Soccerwe teach youngsters to know how to play in a team and for a team and what to do with the ball (when to keep the ball and when to pass the ball); because decision making is very important within the game and indeed in life in general. How many players have you seen who can do incredible things with the ball but once you put them in a team they can't play. Football as a game is not about what you can do with the ball but football is about what you can do with the team using the ball. Players who can do impressive things with the ball can be freestylers but not necessarily footballers.
In our training methods we use very basic practices that improve players technically on an individual and collective level. We cannot reveal or say everything about our methods, but we invite and welcome everybody who cares about youth football development to come and see how we do it and to copy what we do if they can do it in the right way.We care about seeing young footballers play the right way and we will be happy to see everybody coaching kids the Tiki Taka way.
At Tiki Taka Soccerwe focus a lot on how to play as a team. We coach kids from an early age how to keep their heads up before they receive the ball and not receive the ball and look up. We teach them the principles of triangular passing and many other Tiki Taka concepts.
We make talented and top class footballers who can play in a team and for a team, not just individuals who can do a few tricks.
We believe strongly that Tiki Taka Soccer is the best place for a child to reach a supreme caliber of technique and fitness, and the ideal environment to produce healthy and good people with a penchant for respect for others and a positive attitude to work.
Barcelona's Youth Philosophy.
Marcelo Bielsa expressed his feelings post-match that Frank Lampard had “a good taste for attacking football” however over the course of 90 minutes, the rookie Derby coach received a schooling in ruthless, structured and penetrative attacking football from his Argentine counterpart. Lampard set his Derby side up in a 4-3-3 shape looking to play expansive, possession-based football but the lack of structural security when in possession was a vulnerability exposed by Leeds United’s vertical football.In many ways it was kamikaze football from Derby, with their naivety affording Samu Saiz the freedom of Pride Park in the space between the defensive and midfield lines where the Spanish midfield maestro is most effective. On several occasions the entirety of Derby’s central midfield committed to running beyond the ball. The addition of Bielsa’s much fabled high press into this mix was tantamount to Derby playing a game of Russian Roulette and it would be safe to conclude that chance wasn’t in their favour on Saturday. The opening three goals for Leeds came from situations where Derby would have expected to have been enjoying secure possession. The ability of Leeds to hunt in packs, identify pressing triggers, recover the ball and play forward quickly to break the lines.The dynamic of Leeds in midfield, with Kalvin Phillips playing deep as the destroyer, Mateusz Klich playing from box to box as the engine and Saiz playing as the technician (with increased intensity off the ball), looks much more effective and much more capable of dealing with the varied range of playing styles seen in the Championship. The combination of these roles in midfield (the destroyer, the engine and the technician) is an essential ingredient for success, even if the recipe must be varied slightly to account for the traits of the opposition.It was no surprise that Lampard elected to change his shape to match Bielsa’s 4-1-4-1 and introduce Bradley Johnson to attempt to mark Saiz out of the game at half time.
Although this switch was effective in limiting the instances Saiz was able to get on the ball between the lines, his ability to manipulate the ball in tight areas enabled him to contribute to the attacking play as the following example, where the Spaniard got on the ball and created space on the edge of the penalty area, illustrates:This example also demonstrates one other notable feature of Bielsa’s Leeds United so far, being the willingness to commit bodies forward into the penalty area when attacking. It is worth pointing out that in this instance, there is a 3vs2 situation at the far post and within this scenario Fikayo Tomori being overloaded 2vs1, with both Roofe and Hernandez in proximity. One would have expected Richard Keogh to assist his young defensive partner with greater authority, however, the explosive movement of Gianni Alioski away from goal saw the Derby Captain follow his runner and leave a gaping space directly in front of goal. This is one of several instances in both games so far of opponents being drawn to the ball or movement towards the ball, leaving critical expanses of space unguarded behind them.Interestingly, the one game where Leeds managed to perform the action of pushing the full backs into the opposition box with any real kind of consistency last season was the 5-0 home victory over Burton Albion. During his press conference after the game, the Argentine referenced this as being an action that he expects his players to undertake naturally:“When the offensive action is from the left Pablo and Ayling go to the box and when the offensive action is on the right, Alioski and Douglas go to the box.”As per the Stoke game, the contribution of the Leeds No.7, Kemar Roofe, was again magnificent in setting the tone for Leeds defending from the front. Intelligent movement, awareness of his surroundings and a killer instinct saw Roofe deservedly bag a brace in this fixture and it was clear that Bielsa appreciated the contribution from his striker:“It’s always important when a player scores goals. Perched upon his upturned big blue bucket, Marcelo Bielsa will have been left encouraged by the first competitive outing of his Leeds United side.
In terms of Bielsa’s demands, it may not have been a perfect performance for 90 minutes, however, this was 90 minutes of purposeful, high octane football with moments of high quality that has seldom been seen at Elland Road in recent years. The carefully constructed rehearsed patterns, movements based on certain actions at certain times allowed Leeds to get players in positions to attack by making consecutive forward passes, dribbles and intricate but penetrative combinations in the final third.There has been much discussion surrounding Bielsa’s 3-3-3-1/3-3-1-3 formation in pre-season, however, this formation was only used against Las Palmas in the final pre-season fixture.
With Stoke opting to play Benik Afobe up front on his own, the 4-1-4-1 formation deployed was to be expected. Had Stoke sprung a tactical surprise, pushing Tom Ince into a more central attacking role close to Afobe it is likely Kalvin Phillips would have dropped deeper with Leeds changing their shape in that instance. The work in pre-season converting Phillips to a centre half gives Leeds a new found tactical flexibility that was lacking during the last mediocre campaign.Fig 1. Leeds United Starting XI and FormationIn my previous article, I had talked about how regaining balance on the left would be an early priority for Bielsa to lay his football foundations. The partnership between Barry Douglas and Gianni Alioski (both natural left footers) allowed Leeds to maintain width stretching the play, maintain speed of pass when in possession and maintain forward momentum.
Compared to the square peg in a round hole partnerships of recent seasons, there is some promise that like the combination of Luke Ayling and Pablo Hernandez on the right, the partnership of Douglas & Alioski can evolve to instil fear in opposition full backs week after week.It was therefore noteworthy that both Mateusz Klich and Hernandez scored goals from chances engineered on the left-hand side. Bielsa and his coaching staff spend a considerable amount of time on the training ground equipping their players to exploit 1vs1, 2vs1 and 3vs2 scenarios and the intelligent movement and coordinated patterns for the opening goals was testament to this. The first goal from Klich was a textbook example of a player making a diagonal run to receive a straight pass and finish with precision.Fig 2. Example of Bielsa Training Practice working on diagonal movements to receive straight pass to finish.Although the second goal from Hernandez was fortuitous given the error from Jack Butland, there was a clear pattern at the end of the 15 pass move of Douglas and Alioski combining to beat the full back in a 2vs1 scenario before Hernandez drove into the space to unleash his shot at goal. These movements may seem complex at first glance but are in fact incredibly simple and intuitive to integrate into training sessions, whether you are playing for the Leeds United first team or in the park on a Sunday morning.Fig 3. Example of 3 Player Combinations to Finish Movement PracticeThe high pressing game that Bielsa is so renowned for was key to stopping Stoke from breaking the lines, thus forcing them to play backwards and sideways, the ball often being forced all the way back to the feet of Jack Butland so effective was the press. It is said that when out of possession the Argentine Coach wants his team to be vertically compact, with no greater than 25 metres between the defensive line and striker.
When pressing Stoke high, the Leeds defensive line had to therefore step up and adopt a noticeably high line. The starting position of Bailey Peacock-Farrell was often outside the box (considerably higher than last season) and on one of the very few occasions Stoke managed to play a ball in behind, the young goalkeeper confidently swept up with a clearing header.Liam Cooper was impressive in his defensive work and marshalling of the high line. His best performances last season came when Thomas Christiansen played a relatively high line and attempted a possession-based game. I had previously expressed my concerns at Cooper’s ability to play with enough swagger and reliability to deliver passes that penetrate the lines.
Given the first class line breaking pass Cooper made to Alioski in the build up to the first goal (that took 5 defenders out of the game), I walked away from Elland Road with the belief that Cooper can thrive under Bielsa’s tutelage.Fig 4. Positive starting position adopted by Leeds United Goalkeeper, Bailey Peacock-Farrell, behind high defensive lineThe energy and dynamism of Klich and Phillips applying pressure from the front coupled with the impressive efforts of Samu Saiz and Kemar Roofe applying pressure from behind the Stoke central midfield was one of the key areas in the press that allowed Leeds to emerge victorious. This frequent doubling up by Saiz and Roofe allowed the Spaniard to recover the ball quickly in transition, with opportunities to drive forward and pass the ball wide. Joe Allen, Badou Ndiaye and Peter Etebo were not given the time to pick passes through the lines, their only threatening forward passes being made on the occasions Leeds lost possession cheaply in midfield. On the occasions that Stoke worked the ball out wide from the central areas, Hernandez and Alioski doubled up well to protect the full backs sufficiently.Peter Crouch and Bojan being introduced off the bench late on enabled Stoke to pin Leeds back in their own half more consistently and threaten to break the lines although the necessary finesse and guile to unlock these scenarios was missing from midfield.
When the Leeds team started to display signs of tiredness, it was interesting that Bielsa elected to replace Mateusz Klich with Stuart Dallas, deploying the Northern Ireland international in a central midfield role. This was clearly an attempt to inject some energy back into the press but given Dallas (understandably) did not appear entirely comfortable in this new position, Leeds struggled to retain possession more than Bielsa will have intended. It is perhaps unsurprising that given this the likes of Oliver Norwood and George Saville have been linked with moves to Elland Road before the transfer deadline day.Prior to kick off, Gianni Alioski had said that Leeds “were like a bomb ready to explode” and this most impressive of performances suggests that with Bielsa’s philosophy taking hold, Leeds United have the potential to challenge at the top end of the Championship consistently this season., Search Search for: Search.