Tiki-Taka & Living In Community

Last week Spain won the European Soccer Championship for the second time in a row. Spain's run in the world of soccer has been nothing less than phenomenal. They entered last Euro, in 2008, as perennial under achievers not having won anything in the previous 44 years. Most of the decade & half till 2008, they entered most all tournaments with a baggage of the past. The burden of not having won anything worthwhile in the world of  football in spite of  being called favourites was just getting too much to bear. But they won that Euro 2008 and then again the world cup in 2010 and then again the Euro last week to make it a golden treble. The first team to win 3 most important tournaments in a row. In recent past, this Spanish team has hardly lost a game.To top it they hardly seem to be conceding any goals either. The game which Spaniards play has come to be known as tiki-taka. Short & clean passes made over and over to each other. On the outside, it looks like a simple strategy. Keep ball possession as much as possible by passing it around amongst your own players. So much so that at times they are able to pass it around without allowing the opposition to touch the ball for minutes together. But in practice, it is not easy and involves hours of practice during training. It's not simply passing but completing those passes, ie passing with precision. It involves focus and it requires depending your team mates, trusting them to receive a pass from a difficult angle, trusting them to bail you out of a tight spot. They compliment each other, they are almost perfect substitutes for each other and they enjoy each other's success. The beauty of this Spanish team is that you cannot pick one player as the greatest or as a star. When you look at them they just look like one body (if I may use the term) and not a group of players And I doubt, if they have been involved in any serious scandals in the recent past. And not for nothing they are the current world champions & double European champions. This is a bunch of guys who just love what they do and they do it best and they go about doing without making much noise. Of course, as always there are critics. Some of them call it boring. Well, its true. doing the right thing repeatedly can be boring to look at from outside. Popular culture always looks for glamour, flamboyance & attitude, even arrogance from performers. This Spanish team has proved that to succeed, none of this need be a raw material.

Now how does all this link to community living? Well, in more ways than one. 

A few are mentioned below...

• Just like football, Community life is a team 'game'. 
• Community living involves a lot of hard work and working together .
• It is a place where you do not necessarily need to have stars. (Best avoided, infact)
• Trust between members is of critical importance.
• 'Running off the ball' to bail another team member is taught, implemented & practiced in day to day living.
• Doing the right thing repeatedly, habitually. Both individually and as a group. (Our lives change when our habits change. Habits create character. Character is our destiny)
• Complimenting each other rather than competing with each other is promoted.
• Enjoying each others' successes (backing each other during their falls) as if it were my own personal success. For in a community set up, where people (are supposed to) live as one body, to divide success & failures into individual portions would be imply encouraging competition (besides other things).          
• My brother's success is my success and my brother's failure/loss is my failure/loss. 

  While the above is the ideal setting and not all the features may be seen at once in any community set up. As Christians, if we fix anything less than Christ as our ideal, it will only bring about our downfall. We must always be encouraged and move towards perfection and believe that 'tiki-taka' success is within the realms of possibility in community living as well.