Football Manager: Pros and cons of Tiki Taka and Vertical Tiki Taka

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Tiki Taka and Vertical Tiki Taka are two of the most widely used tactics in Football Manager, especially when you are managing strong teams. They are similar in many ways and yet somewhat different to each other.

Vertical Tiki Taka is a more direct version of a Tiki Taka where a team will look to move forward quicker than a Tiki Taka tactic. However, most aspects of the two are quite similar and so are the pros and cons.

The biggest pro of these two tactics is that your team will be expected to dominate possession and make short passing moves to create openings. The tempo in both systems is quite low and passing directness is also short. Your teams will look to dominate the middle of the pitch and use the wide players to stretch the pitch as much as possible.

Tiki Taka and Vertical Tiki Taka are effective tactics if you have high-quality players across the pitch who are blessed with technique, vision and intelligence. They can result in plenty of goals and concede far less if you have the right players. However, it can also be ineffective if your players do not take the chances they create.

Unlike a gegenpress tactic, these systems do not create as many chances but are focused on creating high-quality ones. So, unless you have the right players, you won’t be able to create too many clear-cut chances and you will also need to ensure that your players can make the most of the chances they get. So, a top-quality finisher is also needed.

Every possession-based tactic is vulnerable when you lose the ball as your defenders will play very high to create passing options and build from the back. So you will need quality technical defenders with pace to negate the threat. Sweeper keepers are also mandatory for this system to work properly. So, these tactics only suit bigger teams who have more quality in the side.