Tiki taka taken to new level by La Roja

Anyone who has watched Spain’s two opening Euro 2012 games will not be surprised that La Roja have statistically made a blistering start to the tournament.

Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, David Silva et al made 1,675 passes in total while drawing 1-1 with Italy and then outclassing Ireland 4-0. This leaves them far ahead in the stats table, over 400 clear of France in second with 1,238 passes. That Ireland are last of the 16 teams competing, with 717, will also be no great shock.

When it comes to the players, Spanish playmaker Xavi tops the rankings, with 258 passes made in just 180 minutes of football.

He made 136 passes against Ireland (completing 127), breaking the record for a Uefa European championship game. There are also five other Spaniards in the top 10 — Sergio Busquets, Xabi Alonso, Jordi Alba, Iniesta and Sergio Ramos.

Some observers might feel that such statistics are basically irrelevant, that the only important figures are on the scoreboard. Although Spain out-passed Italy by 672 to 341, the game ended 1-1. Spain (and Barcelona) have regularly been criticised for passing the ball for passing the ball’s sake, but La Roja’s coaches and players both say they play tiki-taka for pragmatic, not aesthetic, reasons.

Previous boss Luís Aragonés placed his faith in his “little guys” Xavi, Iniesta and Silva after Spain lost 3-2 in Belfast in September 2006. He remembered in a recent Marca interview that this decision had not been welcomed by Spanish fans or journalists.

“I cannot forget the tremendous beating I received when I called Iniesta and Silva and put in Xavi,” said Aragonés. “You can see the papers, ‘they were too small, they would bring us nowhere’. But they were the players who marked the way we had to play. The only way we could win was to keep the ball. My idea did not come out of nowhere. We are who we are.”

Spain of course went on to qualify for and win Euro 2008, and then take the 2010 World Cup under Aragonés’ successor Vicente del Bosque. And the Euro 2012 stats so far contradict pre-tournament predictions that injuries to Carles Puyol and David Villa, personality differences, or just mental or physical exhaustion, meant this year’s Spain were not up to previous standards.

According to Spanish newspaper AS, Spain made (just) 350 passes during the 1-0 win over Germany in the 2008 final. Even in their most thrilling performance at that tournament — the 3-0 win over Russia in the semi-final — the total was 481. While beating the Netherlands in the 2010 final they made 582. Against Ireland on Thursday the number was 810.

Even when Del Bosque changes formation, with Fernando Torres as a traditional centre-forward or Cesc Fabregas as a ‘false-nine’, the approach remains the same, as outlined by Xavi on Saturday.

“With a ‘nine’ or without, we never renounce our style, playing to attack, to combine, to weave passing moves,” he said, pointing out that the ultimate aim was always to use possession to score.

“We always go out to have possession, keep the ball moving, and always towards the opposition goal.”

Such success helps to smooth over any potential issues between players within the squad. For decades rivalries between players from Madrid, Barcelona and the Basque country hampered Spain at international level, but it is notable that the stats show that Real’s Alonso, Ramos and even Álvaro Arbeloa are fully integrated within the tiki-taka style.

While this was taken as read in 2008 and 2010, the arrival of Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid two summers ago at first seemed to have disrupted the harmony within the national squad. After the fourclasicos in 18 days in April 2011, Madrid’s players (including Arbeloa and Ramos) were accused of on-field violence, Barca’s (especially Busquets) of being divers.

By last August, when Mourinho poked then Barcelona assistant coach Tito Vilanova in the eye during the brawl which marred the pre-season Supercopa, the situation looked out of control.

Xavi had admitted last month that tensions would have made playing a tournament last summer very difficult, but now says the whole squad is pulling together, with he and Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas, who played together on Spain’s underage teams in the 1990s, having come together to calm things down.

“My friendship with Iker is above any other thing,” he said. “He knows me and I know him. We are friends since we were kids, for 14 years, and nobody can break that.”

All this suggests Spain’s style is capable of overcoming anything — bigger opponents, media criticism, even historical regional rivalries. The stats suggest it is unlikely that Croatia tonight, or any other side through the tournament, will stop La Roja making history by claiming a third successive international tournament.