Here in Granada, Spain, the boys practiced with two teams: Albolote soccer and Granada CF youth academy. The idea was to give the boys an opportunity to learn and play the Spanish style of soccer with other boys their age. Antonio Barea Villegas, vice-president of training and methodology for international soccer training organization AddSoccer who helped coordinate the trip says this style of play is called tiki-taka, which means to “keep the ball with short passes, be patient and progress all together.”
Antonio believes that the main difference between American and Spanish soccer is that “in Spain there is a structure and a philosophy. The teams select the player who plays according to this philosophy (tiki-taka).”
Important to this philosophy is not only the player embracing the tiki-taka style, but also the development and training of Spanish coaches. Results speak for themselves. In the last 15 to 20 years, Spanish youth teams (u21, u19, u18) have won many European and world championships. The Spanish National team won the UEFA Euro Cup in 2008 and 2012, and in 2010 the World Cup – a feat that no other team in the world has ever achieved.
Even if the boys can’t execute tiki-taka all the time, there are many life lessons they are learning from playing Spanish-style soccer in Granada, especially patience and progressing together.
Your trip to Spain sounded really fun and I am sure that it was. There were a lot of interesting facts that I never knew, such as olives are popular in Spain and have many different uses. I never knew they were so popular! One of my favorite things to read about was when you described the Alhambra. It sounds amazing, and I would love to go to Spain and see that one day. The same goes for the mosaic streets. Since I am an artistic person, I love all things beautiful and creative, so these things sound interesting to me. Were you there for any Spanish festivals? I have read about amazing festivals, and I was wondering if you had a personal experience. Also, I liked reading about Spanish soccer. It sounds really fun! Finally, I can relate to traveling with teenage boys. I have so many cousins that I travel with all the time, and I would love to see if we can travel somewhere like this if we get enough money, which may take a while. Anyway, I really loved your blog and the stories described in it, so it was really interesting for me to read. Thank you for describing your wonderful adventure in Granada, Spain to our Spanish class.
I truly loved reading about your trip to Granada Spain. To begin with I thought it was cool how you had a view of the sierra Nevada mountains. By any chance did you get to explore the mountains? also did your son get to play with actual players from the Granada futbol team? What was your favorite part of the whole trip? I thought it was really cool that you shared your trip to Spain with us.