End of an Era.

I first started watching football in 2007, and my first international tournament was Euro 2008. I started out supporting Croatia for some reason (as an Arsenal fan, that was probably due to then-Arsenal striker Eduardo being in the squad). Spain was my second team as they had loads of brilliant players but never seemed to win anything (I later learned that they were European champions in 1964), and I had a thing for underachievers.

Image courtesy of www.croatia.org

Croatia (and their awesome uniforms) won all three of their group games, as did Spain, and I was a happy child. However, Croatia duly got knocked out in the next round, so I only had Spain left to bank on. Not a problem, as it turned out, as they then went on to win the tournament. Once again, I was a happy child.

I didn't know it at the time, but that was the start of a truly golden era in Spanish football. The Spanish national team went on to win the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012, while Spanish club Barcelona won basically everything during that time period as well, all the while playing the mouthwatering style of passing football known as tiki-taka. Suddenly, everyone wanted to play like Spain. Any team that played passing football were said to be following the tiki-taka 'philosophy'. Kids playing football in the park would be exclaiming "Tiki-taka!" whenever they managed to string a few good passes together.

Image courtesy of  worldsoccertalk.com

As for me, I never really was a tiki-taka player. I did admire the beauty and brilliance of it, but I was more suited to direct, counter-attacking football. This caused me a few difficulties whenever I played with my friends, as everyone would want to go tiki-taka while I was the only one looking to launch long balls forward.

Anyway, I digress. Last year, Barcelona were thrashed 7-0 on aggregate in a Champions League semi-final by a Bayern Munich side playing direct, attacking football. This caused people to proclaim that this was the death of tiki-taka, that this tippy-tappy passing lark was no longer relevant as it had finally been 'found out'. This point was reinforced even more after Spain were undone 3-0 by Brazil in the 2013 Confederations Cup final.

However, there were still a good number of people who thought otherwise. Barcelona and Spain would bounce back and be back to sweeping aside all those before them in no time. Tiki-taka would return to being the best way to play winning football.

Those people were proven wrong. Barcelona finished the 2013/14 season without a trophy, while reigning world champions Spain were eliminated from the World Cup after only seven days after limp showings in losses to the Netherlands and Chile. Both these teams played direct, attacking football.

Image courtesy of www.azcentral.com

I was pretty disappointed with Spain's elimination, but truth be told, there was a certain degree of inevitability to it. All good things must come to an end, and all that. Looks like I'll be supporting Croatia and the USA (I was born there; so sue me) for the rest of the World Cup - at least until both teams get dumped out, in which case I'll look to whoever's still left in the tournament.

All in all, it really is the end of Spain's golden era now. Maybe this will signal the start of a new trend of playing: the direct, attacking football that I've always craved. And maybe, if Spain don't adopt this approach, I'll start supporting a team that does. Sounds fickle, I know, but it's not my fault the Malaysian national team is rubbish.

Would be interesting to see which team goes on to dominate the world football scene now.