Tiki Taka 4-3-3 All Winning

Welcome to my tactic, an attempt to emulate Guardiola's tikitaka even if with some changes.

Even if Tikitaka became famous thanks to Guardiola, the original concept was created by Rinus Michels in the 70s. The core concept of both Michels 's Ajax and Pep's Barça is "total football", where each player can play in different position helping each other, attacking together and defending together.

A concept that was used also by Arrigo Sacchi to create his great Milan in 1988-1990 and by many other coaches. But the main feature of Barça's tikitaka is the continuous and at some extent, boring, passing the ball from a player to another, to create like a spidernet where the opponent team players run without getting any chance to steal the ball.

As Barça great midfielders (Xavi, Iniesta) found a opening in the opponent's defending line, they passed the ball directly to a forward who just had to push the ball into the net.

Let's see now how I created my tactic.

First of all, position and duties of each player.

Goalkeeper : Sweeper Keeper (Support): a sweeper keeper with support duty to avoid the keeper moves too far.

Wing Backs: Two wing backs with same offensive duties, will continually overlap right and left, supporting the offensive side. If you want to play a even more offensive game, you can advance the position of one of them (such as Dani Alves in Pep's Barça, who was more a fourth forward than a defender)

Right Central Df: Ball Playing defender with defensive duties, for this position, you need a player with high values on passes, crosses, and technique (at least higher than 10/20).

Left Central Defender: simple Central defender with defensive duties

Deep-Lying Playmaker : the core of this tactic, he operates in the space between the defense and the midfield and tries to create attacking with passes to other players. With defensive duties, he will also help the defenders.

Right-Central Midfielder: Box to Box midfielder, support duty, he will contribute to both defending and attacking, in my AC Milan tactic, Kessie plays in this position and at the end of the first season, he was one of the best scorers of my team, with 15 goals. He often scored with long distance shoots but also in the box.

Left-Central Midfielder: Advanced playmaker, attack duty, he will often try to move into the box but also pass the ball to teammates who are in a better position.

Right Forward and Left forward: Inside forward with attack duty, they both run towards the opponent's box with three options: shoot, cross or dribble.
Central Forward: Falso 9, the position made famous by Leo Messi.....he lures opponent team's central defenders to follow him so that the two side forwards can have enough space to enter the box and shoot or he can receive the ball from midfielders and try long distance shoot.

Now, let see the other settings.

The mentality of my tactic is Attacking, but you can set it to Positive or Balanced if you play against a stronger opponent.

When my team is in possession, the attacking width is set to narrow because the players have to pass the ball one to another with short passes, and to do so they have to be close to each other.

The approach play starts from the defense, so I set the play out of defense option and also, since the wingbacks have to support the attacking, I set also the option overlap left and right for both wingbacks.

Crosses have to be set to Low crosses if your forward is short and has not high value at heading (at least 17-18), if your forward is very tall and good at heading then you can choose floated crosses, if your forward is not so tall neither short, you can choose mixed crosses.

Passing directness should be short or slightly shorter and tempo lower or slightly lower, I advice you to select also the Play for set pieces option in order to get more control of the match.

Of course, for a tikitaka tactic, select Dribble less is a must.

Non Possession

When the opponent steals the ball, you want to counter-press in order to recover the ball as soon as possible, the core concept of tikitaka is that opponent team should never have the ball, as Guardiola said, if we always have the ball, opponent will not score.

When your team recovers the ball, you want to select the Hold shape option in order to start playing your style again, with slow passing. Counter option is more typical of Klopp's Gegenpressing tactic and I will not select it for my tactic.

As for the goalie options, you can choose to pass the ball to central defenders or to wingbacks, with short kicks or rolling it out.

Out of Possession

The defensive line and pressing line must be high or much higher, if you play against a stronger team you maybe want to select higher to avoid to leave too much space behind your defensive line, a space the opponent can take advantage of.

If you play against a lower league team or a weaker team, you can select much higher for both defensive line and pressing line to block the opponent inside their box from the match start.

Remember: always select the same option for both lines (ex. defensive line: high - pressing line: high OR defensive line: much higher - pressing line much higher) to avoid to leave much space between the two lines.

The defensive width should be standard, to avoid teams who use a lot inside forwards to have too much space on both sides to attack your defense. Use tighter marking and extreme urgent pressing or urgent if you see the players are too tired, reduce the pressing intensity.

As for tackling, I don't select any option because I want to avoid to get too many yellow or red cards but also I want to avoid to allow too much freedom for opponent players

This is all for my tactic, I hope you like it.