page_title: Spain national football team
section_title: Style of play
hierarchical_section_title: Spain national football team / Team image / Style of play
caption_attribution_description: English: Spain with the cup after FIFA World Cup 2010 Final against Netherlands, 11 July 2010, Soccer City, Johannesburg
context_page_description: The Spain national football team has represented Spain in international men's football competition since 1920. It is governed by the Royal Spanish Football Federation, the governing body for football in Spain.
  Spain are one of the eight national teams to have been crowned worldwide champions, having participated in a total of 15 of 21 FIFA World Cups and qualifying consistently since 1978. Spain has also won three continental titles, having appeared at 10 of 15 UEFA European Championships.
  Spain became the first European team to win a FIFA World Cup outside of Europe, having won the 2010 tournament in South Africa, as well as having won back-to-back European titles in Euro 2008 and Euro 2012, defeating Germany and Italy in the respective finals, making them the only national team with three consecutive major titles. Because of this, from 2008 to 2013, the national team won the FIFA Team of the Year, the second-most of any nation, behind only Brazil. Also between February 2007 and June 2009, Spain went undefeated for a record-equalling 35 consecutive matches, a record shared with Brazil.
context_section_description: During Spain's most successful period between 2008 and 2012, the team played a style of football dubbed 'tiki-taka', a systems approach to football founded upon the ideal of team unity and a comprehensive understanding in the geometry of space on a football field.
  Tiki-taka has been variously described as "a style of play based on making your way to the back of the net through short passing and movement", a "short passing style in which the ball is worked carefully through various channels", and a "nonsensical phrase that has come to mean short passing, patience and possession above all else". The style involves roaming movement and positional interchange amongst midfielders, moving the ball in intricate patterns, and sharp, one or two-touch passing. Tiki-taka is "both defensive and offensive in equal measure" – the team is always in possession, so doesn't need to switch between defending and attacking. Commentators have contrasted tiki-taka with "Route One physicality" and with the higher-tempo passing of Barcelona and Arsène Wenger's 2007–08 Arsenal side, which employed Cesc Fàbregas as the only channel between defence and attack. Tiki-taka is associated with flair, creativity, and touch, but can also be taken to a "slow, directionless extreme" that sacrifices effectiveness for aesthetics.
  Tiki-taka was successfully employed by the Spanish national team to win UEFA Euro 2008, 2010 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012. The team of this era is regarded as being among the greatest international teams in history.
  They have the Barcelona "carousel" of Xavi and Andrés Iniesta augmented by Real Madrid's Xabi Alonso in midfield.
  — Phil McNulty of the BBC on the midfield players at the heart of Spain's tiki-taka passing style of play.
  Sid Lowe identifies Luis Aragonés' tempering of tiki-taka with pragmatism as a key factor in Spain's success in Euro 2008. Aragonés used tiki-taka to "protect a defense that appeared suspect [...], maintain possession and dominate games" without taking the style to "evangelical extremes". None of Spain's first six goals in the tournament came from tiki-taka: five came from direct breaks and one from a set play. For Lowe, Spain's success in the 2010 World Cup was evidence of the meeting of two traditions in Spanish football: the "powerful, aggressive, direct" style that earned the silver medal-winning 1920 Antwerp Olympics team the nickname La Furia Roja ("The Red Fury") and the tiki-taka style of the contemporary Spanish team, which focused on a collective, short-passing, technical and possession-based game.
  Analyzing Spain's semi-final victory over Germany at the 2010 World Cup, Honigstein described the Spanish team's tiki-taka style as "the most difficult version of football possible: an uncompromising passing game, coupled with intense, high pressing". For Honigstein, tiki-taka is "a significant upgrade" of Total Football because it relies on ball movement rather than players switching position. Tiki-taka allowed Spain to "control both the ball and the opponent".
  We have the same idea as each other. Keep the ball, create movement around and off the ball, get in the spaces to cause danger.
  — Xabi Alonso (Spanish midfielder).
caption: Spanish players celebrate winning the 2010 FIFA World Cup
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