precise, elegant passing style: "Estamos tocando tiki-taka tiki-taka" ("we are playing tiki-taka tiki-taka"). FC Barcelona The roots of what would develop into tiki-taka began to be implemented by Johan Cruyff during his tenure as manager of Barcelona from 1988 to 1996. The style of play continued to develop under fellow Dutch managers Louis van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard and has been adopted by other La Liga teams. Barcelona's Dutch managers made it a point to promote from their youth system, and Barcelona's La Masia youth academy has been credited with producing a generation of technically talented, often physically small, players such as Pedro, Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Cesc Fàbregas, and Lionel Messi; players with excellent touch, vision and passing, who excel at maintaining possession. Pep Guardiola managed Barcelona from 2008 to 2012, winning 14 titles. Under his guidance, tiki-taka was established. This was partly due to Guardiola's visionary coaching, partly due to an exceptional generation of players, many of whom had been schooled in La Masia's idiosyncratic style, and partly due to Barcelona's ability to sustain intense pressure on the ball. The 2005 update to the offside law was also a contributing factor: by forcing defenders deeper, the law expanded the effective playing area, making players' size matter less and allowing technical skills to flourish. The tactic shared Dutch Total Football's principle of high defensive line, positional interchange and use of possession to control the game. Tiki-taka diverged from its Total Football roots by subordinating everything to the pass: Guardiola played a centre-forward as a false nine to keep the ball moving fluidly from different angles; he played the full-backs higher; he selected midfielders in defence to exploit their passing ability; and he forced the goalkeeper to play the ball out from the back. The guiding principle of this type of play was efficient use of space. The teams must narrow the playing space while defending, and must expand the playing space wider while attacking. The objective was to make quick and short passes, till an opponent was caught out of position and space was created. Pep also used the concept of positional play, which in simple words mean that the pitch is divided into different zones, and that no more than 2 players must occupy the same line vertically and no more than 3 players should occupy the same line horizontally. Guardiola trained his players by painting lines on the